Saturday am 1040 UK time
Gwylan
Charles Manby
Sat 5 Dec 2009 11:05
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Well we have been making steady but unspectacular
progress towards St Lucia. Yesterday the winds picked up at bit and
managed quite a lot of time in the 10-12 knots vs the 8-10 knots which makes a
big difference. Overnight they have increased to 11-14 and speeds are up
so each of the 3 hour watches overnight are making 21-3 nm.
Did I tell you about the watch system? We are
doing pairs of 3 hours on 6 hours off, all hands on deck if we need to change
the spinnaker. We have mixed it up so we change the pairings. During
the day it's more casual with formal watches with lifejackets on from 8 to
8. We changed the clocks back by 1 hour yesterday. There was general
mutiny when I suggested we do that at 0200 like changing the clocks from winter
to summer time. That would have suited me very well as Tom and I had
0500-0800 and 2000 to 2300 last night. As a result we could have got 7
hour break overnight and dawn at 0630 not 0730. In the end ship clock
changed yesterday afternoon. We are now 3 hours behind the UK and 1 more
hour switch to do at St Lucia.
HOT! Sea temperature is up to 33 deg C, and
the few hours in the middle of the day are very hot indeed. Nicky and I
even retired for a mid afternoon snooze and switched the aircon on which now
works properly in the aft cabin.
So now we are at 15 24N 53 39W, and we have 430nm
to go. At 7.5 knots we will be in late afternoon Monday St Lucia time, at
7 knots it will be late evening and at 8 knots after lunch. We are
steering 250T with the wind from 70T and we need to make 260T for the northern
tip of St Lucia so we will need the wind to veer a bit towards the east or we
may have to gybe! Parasailor has been up for over 48 hours now and without
it this would have been painfully slow. We did put up the cruising chute
two days ago and was surprised to see how small a sail it is compared to the
parasailor. So all those hours of sewing were worth it and the repairs
have held together well.
Satori got fed up with no spinnaker which they had
blown to shreds on Day 3 or so. This means they can't sail at any speed
dead downwind, so they had the choice of head for Brazil at speed or go very
slowly downwind. So late on Thursday night they switched on the engine and
conceded defeat. When the winds got up again on Friday they were not so
sure. (PS They are Chelsea supporters, having a dry boat with no women on
board etc - no stamina)
A Lady I am afraid is going to win the class and
the race among the Oyster 56s unless she has used her engine. Between us
and Sarabi it's pretty close. So it looks as though the Oyster 56s will
all be within 8 hours or so. We have been followed by a Swan 53 for 24
hours consistently about 10nm behind. I guess that tomorrow evening on
Sunday more boats will start to appear.
Domestically we nearly had a water crisis and were
going to have to start drinking Chateau Gwylan 2009 nouveau, which tastes fine,
but the watermaker membranes make the water very flat. Then Carsten
remembered another 50 bottles of mineral water under Tom's bunk so now we have
that instead again. No luck fishing yesterday at faster speeds, but we
still have enough Blackfin Tuna for another ceviche.
I have finished Greece and now moving onto Rome in
Lane Fox. I wonder if I will finish Rome? Just like my degree I
suspect: Rome will appeal less although I know less about the post Augustan
period. I had not realised that the Greeks at the time of Euclid had a
pretty good estimation of the circumference of the Earth.
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