Kotari Blog
Kotari
Sun 29 Nov 2020 12:26
Update 2 from the jolly lass Kotari!
I can confirm we are all still onboard and well.
Carol has impressive bruises,
My hairs growing back
Richards finger hasn’t fallen off since shutting the fridge on it
Eddie hasn’t yet managed to break down the partition dividing our cabins (maybe he doesn’t want to spoon after all)
I’ve acquired a small but mighty rope burn around my wrist from Friday nights frivolities (see more below)
Mark is still occasionally damaging his jaw from grinning so much
So now we’ve worked this blog thing out, just you try and stop us!
Again sorry its taken so long to send… we’ve been busy - see below
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Day 5
Well since our last update I must say day 5 (Thursday I think) 26th November has been a consistently 20-30 knot day with a sea state that is just trying too hard.
Mostly waves from the ENE in the 2 +/- m range with a decently long period but then they get gate crashed every 5/10 mins by some corkers from the NNE which really like to cork screw the boat around.
After some tiring hand steering which is effective in predicting them we’ve gone back to Auto Jim who I’ll give a 5.5/10 comfort rating too.
Ultimately the above has lead to not much change in the sail department. Feeling a bit cocky this morning we unfurled 100% of the Genoa and gained an extra knot, our average for the day so far is just under 8 knots average.
Now we’ve put a little furl back in again and dropped the pole forward again to take into account the punch wind shifts (70º to 30º in the shake of a lambs tail)
The biggest casualty of the last 24 hours has been the ice cream… (sad) which is unrecoverable from the 4ºC freezer. We enjoyed the last of it in milkshake form on Wednesday night Basically the world hasn’t ended although I think we’ll be signing a different tune.
Had a spot of team photo-shoots in the totally unpleasant 26 degree sunshine to thank Team O marine in Southampton for our cracking lifejackets with their back towing system. Of course we’re planning on not having to test them… but its nice to have!
Other exciting news is that the first flying fish have been spotted. No fish however have yet been caught. Lures keep jumping out the water but I don’t want to slow down!
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The Position report update.
I wish I could see/use the yellow brick tracker to see where the rest of the pack are. We’ve not seen anyone on AIS since Emily Morgan 2 nights ago and haven’t seen a sail or had a radar target since then either. I know we’re likely travelling close parallel to ze German boat Peter von Seestermühe who I’d love to be able to keep tabs on as they seem to be quicker than us.
Need the wind to pipe down a little bit so we can use our spinnakers to our advantage as our handicap reflects them!
Hope all is safe and well in the rest of the fleet
I hope this is the last entry for Thursday 26th
RP
Ps Cabin buoy Dennis doesn’t seem too happy with this name being published in the blog… so I thought I’d just bring it up here for no particular reason.
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Day 6 - Friday 27th
Blighmey!!
Today started off with the wizz of Mark trying (and failing miserably) to fight Moby Dick on the end of one of the lines. As you can imagine, this resulted in the loss of an entire line and lures etc… Don’t feel great about leaving lovely lines and hooks in the water but I guess that’s part of the risk of fishing under sail and what knot….
The Reel ran out so quickly there was a hot smell of nylon.
Soon after the sun came up, we also got the Asymetric up on the mast head halyard. We/I had 2 marvoulous hours of cruising at around 10 knots on a broad reach with the second reef in in 19-27 knot winds surfing waves…
A pig in S*** doesn’t even come close.
Carol fancied a spin so after a spot of shadowing she was off and also clocking 11-12 knots every now and then.
In the vicinity of 1030 the tack line (rope that holds the spinnaker down to the bowsprit) decided it had had enough and next thing we were flying a very large flag from the mast.
We got it down no issues and after a spot of faff had re moused (mousing is feeding ropes through gaps using smaller ropes to pull them through… if that makes sense) a new and stronger tack line.
We prepped the other, smaller kite and in the slight over enthusiasm to get going at break neck speeds again, we basically got the kite caught around the furling line which pulled it through a v small hole/fair lead…
2 hours later we had just about fixed this. The tools that were used to fix it:
- fair liquid - failed
- brute force - miserably failed
- Dremel - contributor to success
- all the mole grips - same as above
- many more
Basically during this we were limping along under mainsail only at 5-7 knots rather than our prefereed 9-12.
Getting the 1200 position report to find out that Peter von S has pulled further ahead was a spot off salt on the wound.
I decided that the best way to get over the fear of a spinnaker induced balls up, is to get it up again… so here we are now at 1530 UT having had a more successful longer session. It isn’t quite as quick as before as the wind has dropped slightly and veered (you may say this is a good thing) but we are still clocking the occassional 10 knots, averaging around 8.5!
Peter Von S we are coming for you
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There looks to be some lighter winds to try and dodge in the coming few days! More symmetrical spin action scheduled for this.
Monday looks good to be our halfway point so (touching all the wood) we are on schedule for 16 day crossing which wouldn’t be to shabby… there is still 1826 miles to go however…
Richard found another defrosted pre cooked chilli at the bottom off the now thawed freezer… that’ll be 3 times in a row now!
I must say we’ve eaten bloody well and hat off to Richards meal prep etc. Ask me in a week.
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In other news it seems to be date night tonight as Mark/Richard have been pruning their beards etc… Might do the same! I think my facial hair is currently longer than the spikes on my heads!
Carol’s been on my case to help avoid burnt scalp! Today might be the first failure!
Thats all for now!
R
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Not thats not all for now, just caught and landed our first fish (Dorade) although still managed to lose it… This may well have been my fault but it was the first time I’ve ever welded a Gaff… Sorry Eddie
Good news is that since the freezer died, we are now in positive balance on the power so have been crusinging at 100% charge since 0400!
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If we don’t make some serious miles up today, then fair f****ing play to Peter v S and the others!
We’ve not had the Asym up since 1200 and our approx average vmg is 8.8 since then. VMG = velocity made good, which is a fancy sailing term (to make you sound like you know what you’re talking about) for, Going Fast in the Right Direction.
For example, some boats are heading a long way South to get the better winds, they are travelling quickly but not heading towards St Lucia directly so their VMG will never be as good as a boat travelling at the same speed in The Right Direction….
Anyway its been absolutely champagne sailing, I don’t know how we manage it.
First Squall encountered just before dinner which, rather than do the sensible thing (drop the spinnaker/ put another reef in) we fancied trying to outrun it…. We had a cracking increase in wind and gifted with quite flat water (the waves/swell tend to get flattened out by sudden rainfall/down draft winds), high 20’s in the wind and we surfed our way out off it on an almost perfect course… INTO the sunset…. Phwoar,
Won’t be as lucky every time but that was pretty special.
Anyway,
We are still hooning along, Just hit 12 knots as I’m typing this. I have trusted the helming over to auto Jim who I must say is worth his wait in gold!
I’m sleeping on the packed spinnaker on deck tonight incase we need to do a sudden drop.
Expecting the wind to drop off quite a bit around 0300 until around 0900.
We have also hit 1/3 of the crossing point!
Night for now!
R
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Speaking too soon doesn’t quite cut the mustard.
2nd Squall. 15-30+ knots, broach, spinnaker in the water trawling for fish…. Small rip of a mere meter or few… Need to repair the other Asym as this one is out of commission until a sail loft can have its way with it.
Lesson of the day
"Though shall not tempt fait or fly spinnakers in the dark near squalls!"
Thats the first two “All hands on deck”’s we’ve had in one day!
Maybe it’s a sign.
Might have to start listening to the Cabin buoys wisdom (editors note resisted saying told you so but he knows…….)
We will all sleep well
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Day 7 - Saturday 28th
We slipped lines around about a week ago, time flies when you are sailing down wind!
This morning we had the most frustrating of conditions as there are squally clouds ever-where and once they’ve dumped their loads on us they leave us with v light winds doing circles which in these sea states is pretty unpleasant.
30 mins later we’re back up and running again before it happens again… urgh, this is not good for average speeds!
Spinny up again (editors note when will he learn?)
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2030 28/11
Yesterday taught me a few lessons… many stated above but a new one…. Don’t write a blog before the days finished, this will save you from eating your words!
So, basically a cracker of a day, exclude the mornings wind holes after being rained on, we got the kite up before lunch and we got it down just before dinner as the sun had set. Nothing went wrong.
We got an average of over 8 knots (from 1200) and hopefully made up some good miles on Pete! (Von S….)
Wish we could send some photos but we’re not quite there yet tech wise. Striking skies all day with big rolling clouds around us but not upwind of us luckily.
Stunning light, dolphins gave us a quick flyby (typically my camera was out of space just as this happened)
Remembered how to splice and eye splice with dyneema (its actually pretty straightforward)
Spinnaker halyard took a bit of a beating being flown with mostly over 20 knots all day
All fairly slick and automatic onboard now, we’re on a new watch system which rotates crew ever 2 hours to mix it up a bit for everyone!
I seem to be on a sleep by night/ up all day system as sleeping while the spinnakers up is potentially poking the bear!
We ran the water maker for the first time today and topped up our only empty tank… it seems we are all on survival mode, even with a few showers each, in 7 days we’ve used less than half of what we used in the trips getting the boat to Las Palmas… happy days
Richard has informed me we do not have enough fuel to motor the rest of the way, thank you Richard.
Winds are right up the chuff tonight, back to polled out jib with a reef in incase we get surprised by a squall! With the almost full moon (it must be tomorrow) it’s so damn bright we reckon the solar panels are getting some juice in them. It does mean the stars could be better though…. Let me think if I can come up with some more first world dilemmas..
Looking forward to half way on Monday! Jeeze it feels like we should have reached that milestone already but hey ho!
Another cracking feed of course with microwaved home made (not onboard) brownies for pudding! Banging
Think that’s about that for the day,
Signing off
Hope you’re all excited for the end of lockdown!
R
PS one more thing. The fish out here must be massive as since our (my) failed Dorado gaffing we’ve caught about 4 creatures of the sea but I’m not sure they can be fish as they have snapped 3 lines and burnt out a reels bearings so we are down to 1 rod and I’m not sure we want to land whatever is causing the rods to bend like that!