18.10.53N 53.38.15W
JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Wed 5 Dec 2007 23:03
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T'was not I who shot the albatross ( read "The
Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner ).
so why do we suffer from a lack of wind.Its been 2
days now of very light or non existent winds causing our daily runs to be well
down.We are currently motor sailing more motoring than sailing I might
add.
I was going write that it has its compensations but
it doesn't it is just slow.The first of the big boats (63 ft) have reached
Jolly Harbour our destination in Antqua with the rest of us expecting to arrive
over the next week.We should arrive Sunday / Monday if the
anticipated trade wind re-establishes itself shortly otherwise we might not
arrive until Monday.
Many of the yachts are now running very short of
diesel which will cause them to slow considerably, although anumber of
boats have reported breakdown of equipment there have not been any major issues
which would stop the boat sailing.As always watermakers ,generators and various
pumps have given problems to a variety of boats but the major issues has been
radio communications on SSB and I think that most of this has been down to the
quality of the installation,it is very evident out here which boats have it
installed correctly.
While you are approaching winter we are sweltering
out here in 40 deg even the sea is 31 deg and Chris has been taking a daily
dip, we keep a lookout for the sharks on the odd occasion.Yesterday Alan
managed to catch a barracuda type fish(we have the picture) part of
which we had last night for dinner ,it was delicious,but we now need to use up
the meat in the freezer.I ,must say it makes a change from them overtaking the
boat ,if only we could harness fish power.
Back to boating matters, our number one enemy
on the long passages is chafe, everything that is subject to movement
wears and needs checking everyday.We have already changed the ends of
several lines and today we found that the three retaing screws on the
furling gear were loose in fact one had already fallen out,remember this was
only fitted new in June by the riggers.Any change in sound operation or movement
on any part of the boat is checked out any bolts,pins or screws found on the
deck traced,its the ones that you don't find because they have gone overboard
that cause the problems.
So hear we are 450nm to go sweltering in the heat
and looking forward to a nice cold Beer in the Caribbean sun. STOP PRESS WE SAW OUR FIRST SHIP FOR 10 days It was
an event
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