blog
Imagine of Plymouth
Arthur
Tue 27 Nov 2007 15:33
|
Hallo All,
We are humming along now after an eventfull
evening, of wind, no wind and heading direction New York to get wind angles
right and keep the boat moving. Arthur and myself studied the weather chart
carefull plus the ARC reports and decided to stay close t the rumb line (most
direct route) and latest position report shows that we are doing well and it
appears one of the few boats who did not motor!! Motoring is allowed but you
must report it.
Last night we had an excellent meal heated up
by Mark, Renate's meal prepartion was probably the best move of this crossing!!
Nobody likes being below when it is rough and rolling especially as captain
Arthur does not like going slow. Sleeping has been a problem for us all, the
bunks are not really made for the sea. Chris has got a double aft with no lee
cloths so he has seen all corners of his cabin. He is also underneath the aft
cabin so can hear every winch grinding, people walking and clipping their
harnesses on and off. Robert has for the first day started to perk up a bit and
is slowly starting to enjoy things, he even pulled the down haul once
today!! He offered to make lunch but felt sick again when going down below.
Arthur has been able to put a few hours sleep in and now very motivated
that we are one of the leading boats in class. Nothing appears to phase mark who
sleeps in the bow and during the night regulary lifted off is bed when we
bounced off a wave. I have moved beds to the leeward side of the boat.
Unfortunately i only have 6 inches clearance when I lie on my back so a bit
cramped.....when Arthur was on watch I nicked his bed and also slept outside.
We are now falling in a routine of lunches and have
had our first showers!! This was not possible earlier as you would have taken
out the bathroom door due to rolling of the boat!!
This afternoon we put the big 190sqm kite up and
where flying!! I helmed for approx 2 hours and Arthur another 2 hours with
speeds in excess of 9 hours. Seas where huge builing up to approx 12ft and
decided that when it started to blow 22 knots true is was time to take it down.
We have a snuffer but I still had to pull my full weight on it to make it work.
For thos who are worried I was wearing a lifejacket and clipped on!! Quick
packaway and now going on along at 8-9 knots. We are considering putting a small
spinnaker up for a few hours. We will have no kite up during the night as we all
need to sleep!
Lots of chatter on the SSB about position reports
which is distracting me from writing.
Increadibly we also had a few phone calls today so
that equipment seems to work! (Arthur was very happy about this) Robert was
sitting outside with the comfort of his Iridium phone talking to his wife.
Approx 10 years ago when I sailed from Australia to Thailand whe had a GPS and
VHF, how times have changed. We need to run the generator running approx 6 hours
a day to keep all the systems going including the large wide screen tv i am
writing this blog on.
We have got a fishing line over the back put after
6 hours no fish yet so it is just slowing us down.
Anyway more later, I am cooking duty!
See you from a sunny
Atlantic
|