Life on Board
Fair Do's VII, Atlantic 2008....
Professor John Shepherd
Fri 28 Nov 2008 10:09
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Hi All,
By popular demand of some of the more unfortunate
wags involved in this campaign todays installment will include a blow by blow
(or more accurately sniff by sniff) account of life onboard.
So, I shall give you a brief overview of th efun
and games of the last 24 hours and then a run down of the key protaganists,
a rare glimpse of their warped state of mind and finally a beard
update.
Yesterday's boatspeed record was 19.7 knots set by
Hugh - he rather unfortunately timed it with John S's biological routine, so
John was in the heads utilising the compost bags when an official fastest toilet
stop of the trip so far was set - he is I think very proud.
Before we go into 'beardwatch' I shall just
give a general flavour of some of the more general bits, firstly we have no idea
what day it is, John and I constantly find outselves asking what day it is to
ensure we are looking at the right forecast.
The day, is split into watches of four and each of
the watches of three rotate through the cycle of off, on standby, off etc -
therefore, if you went down stairs and slept immediately (never happens) did not
get disturbed during you watch for a question or a sail change (never happens)
and got woken up only 20 minutes before your watch you could theoretically sleep
for 7 hours 20 minutes ( 3hours 40 minutes, per off watch) this leaves zero time
for brushing teeth, cooking etc. I would say most are running on between 4 and 6
hours of very broken, hot sweaty, fully dressed (in the main sleep) - and still
everyone gets on and banter remains high!
Jamie Keogh - quite a special aroma, maturing not
so much like a fine wine and more like a blue cheese. Rather inappropriately he
was caught short whilst out on the bow sprit yesterday and had to use that
location to unload.
Paul Wakelin - Probably the cleanest smelling of
the ones I have been unfortunate enough to be in close proximity to. He is going
for his apprentice bowman badge, I took him under my wing to plug in the Jib top
at around 2300 lasrt night and got told off for shouting (not by him - though it
is tricky not to shout to be heard one a 46 foot boat doing 15 knots in 20+
knots of breeze).
George Rice - to follow....
Johnathan Herod - to follow....
Hugh Fletcher - to follow....
Ian Clingan - to follow....
Matt Howard - to follow....
Duncan Truswell - to follow....
John Shepherd - to follow....
What about today? Well there has been talk of Hugh
plugging in the electric transfer pump to hose us down, fire hydrant style on
the foredeck. This will be especially welcome for all of us, with regard to
Jamie whose performances off the transom have been excessive and at times
sudden.
Without sounding too camp there has also been
discussion of a pampering hour, wet wipes, deodorants, feet washing (you do your
own, happily). This will by in stark contrast to the recent personal
hyygiene amnesty over the last couple of days, where pushing hard has been
the emphasis and hygiene has very much took a back seat - way back.
More later...................!
Regards,
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