Course:  010

 

 

 

We have been a little underpowered all day today with 2 reefs in the main and full genoa but the swell from the west is catching us on the beam  and even with a preventer on the boom it is painful with more sail up as the wind changes from peak to trough.  The genoa handles this much better.  Anyway, we are cracking on and lave logged 95 miles today so that's good enough. Yesterdays weather grib says I'm getting 20 kts tomorrow instead of the 15 I expected so we may yet have a 3rd reef in but I will see how it goes.  I had 5 minutes of reefing stupidity last night when I put the 2nd reef in, I set things up and knew it didnt look right and the sail shape was wrong, but couldnt work out what I'd done.  After a bit I realised that I had the 2nd reef cringle set at the end of the boom and the 3rd reef at the gooseneck.  I've reefed this boat hundreds of times and you would think it should be 2nd nature but it seems not.  One more thing for my mental checklist before the next reef.

 

No ships overnight.  I have an alarm set that wakes me to check every 30 / 40 minutes plus 2 AIS alarms.  My AIS transmitter both sends my position and will pick up that of a ship at 20 - 30 miles so I have a good picture of what's about and plenty of time to react.  The second alarm is the backup and is only triggered for ships that will come within a mile of me.  The volume of this is set to max and I have to remember to switch it off if I'm already up and dealing with a ship that will come close or it scares the c**p out of me and can probably be heard on the ship that is closing on us.   When there is shipping about the alarm frequency is dropped to 20 minutes or I bite the bullet and stay up till the ships are gone but there is no need for that out here.

 

Nature  

We always seem to have a Corys Sheerwater somewere about the boat, but just the one and nothing else to report.  I've toyed with the idea of fishing as we are going about the right speed but if I caught something then there really isnt room in the fridge so I'm going to eat what I have first and then try my luck.

Anyway - no excuses about a fouled hull if we are slow.  That will be down to me.  (And I think the fish reference means that this can stay under nature - They were silver and looked like a kid would draw a fish by way of description)

 

General.

It has been gray and overcast most of today.  I had to wear a tee shirt and there was no sun to try a noon sight for latitude (just as well as I have realised that it is 30 years since I last did this and I'd best read up on the process.  The sky has gone blue in the last hour so I will practice some sights this evening and worry about the book side tomorrow.

 

 

Texts.

 

Em - Weather has been a bit poor today but evening looking good.  Better than yours anyway.  I'm ploughing through the fresh stuff and trying to eat it before it goes bad.  Had a carrot crisis last night and realised I'd left them in the plastic bag from the supermarket.  About half were buried at sea, a quarter have been marked "must eat today" so I have had carrot sticks (with peanut butter and nutella) for breakfast.  The rest are in the net and should be ok for a day or two.  Good as I dont want to eat any more just now.   Would love an aubergine though ! 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Jez