Day 7 Sat 26 11 2005
Nowcrew
Sat 26 Nov 2005 13:09
The day started with
a healthy 15 Knot South Westerly blow. The wind was about 90 degrees on the beam
so out came the cruising chute. One our later the cruising chute was laying flat
across the water we'd blow out the webbing attachment that held the sail to it's
snuffer (the snuffer is the bag we use to de-power the sail to bring it down).
"All hands" was called and the crisis was soon over leaving us more repairs. to
make.
Now3 bowled along at
9 knots all day powering through a big beam sea - good job we'd all got our sea
legs by now. We we're eating up the miles.
Tom and Tollers
performed a mini-concert on deck while we sang along.
By 6pm we'd broken
the 2000 mile mark so out came our first beers of the trip a combined with some
crisps and peanuts we had a mini-party.
A we sat there
enjoying the last few hours of the day enjoying a brief "pat on the back-we made
it this far moment" the ipod and CD player tripped out. It soon became apparent
that it was a power problem. Ron was soon on the case and frustratingly we
discovered that we we're taking more out of the battery than we could put
in. However being the font of all boat knowledge he soon worked out a system to
jump some power over from the 24volt system and after a big overnight charge
from the generator we should be back up and running.
As night closed
in the wind built up to 25 knots, we put 2 reefs in the main and still
maintained our 9 knots. We're looking forward to a record distance covered over
24hours which will be measured at tomorrow's mid-day report.
We're currently
chasing 2 other Beneteau 57s Charliz who is 125 miles closer to St Lucia and La
Royere 11 who is about 50 miles ahead of us. Both boats are further North and
therefore may have to point higher and could be slowed by the Atlantic
swells. They made the decision to take the north route earlier than us and got
on the back of the low before us. However as we close on St Lucia we have
the advantage of a spinnaker or 2 poled out genoas (the other 2 boats don't have
either option) which may give us the edge downwind and allow us to catch
up.
Fingers
crossed.
The final crisis
came early into the night when Simon heard the water pump running - Dave and Tom
had been storing their guitars in the front shower., the guitars had jumped up
and turned on the shower, over half a tank of water had poured over them before
we noticed.
The quote of the day
was from Ron: "It's like being back in the Irish Sea-I was expecting azure blue
seas-none of this grey rubbish".
Nowcrew
out.