AZAB Day 0 - Start day!
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Sat 1 Jun 2019 18:45
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Position 49:52.9N 5:13.7W
Well we are finally underway. It is good to be
off, because the anticipation is horrendous. You know it's coming and its
getting ever closer and you just get more and more nervy. To make things
even more nerve-wracking, the BBC turned up just as we were about to leave, and
insisted on interviewing E and I on the pontoon. Thankfully it was quite
short and easy but it didn't help Emilia's nerves! We really were not
expecting for her to be a minor celebrity as a result of doing this, I hope
noone thinks we're doing this to break a record or something.
We motored out, it was low tide and a couple of boats
briefly got stuck on the bottom but we snuck out without touching. Once
out into Falmouth harbour it was absolutely teeming with boats - competitors,
sightseeing boats, people out for a sail - it was heaving! We motored
quietly around, waiting for the starting sequence. We are in Class 4 - the
slowest boats - and we started at 1240. The Gods were looking down on us
and we actually had a SE'ly wind, 10kts, so were able to reach in on port and we
got a pretty good start, just behind Mark Slats and Susie Goodall.
The wind slowly dropped off to nothing, which was a
pain, and when it did come back in most of the boats were able to hoist
spinnakers and creep ahead. We rounded the Manacles buoy at 1515 and were
able to bear off a bit, and we've been beam-reaching ever since, in 6-10kts of
breeze. It's not enough for Nutmeg, and we've watched most boats creep
ahead of us. We've still got one boat behind us, but it's made E and I
realise that we are in a heavy slow boat!
Forecast looks to have the wind increasing and veering
round to the SW - exactly where we want to go - so I suspect it is going to be a
difficult couple of days, both from the perspective of having to tack out into
the Atlantic and never being able to head directly to where we want to go, and
the motion is going to be tough I think. We are both feeling quite anxious
still; Emilia did manage to have a couple of hours' sleep this afternoon, but I
havent yet. We did both sleep really well last night though, so we're
OK. I think it will take a couple of days to get into the rhythm.
Right now I'm wondering what on earth I've put us in for.
We have just had pre-dinner snacks (healthy
carrots/cucumber, in case the nutrition police are reading!) and we have a
lasagne bubbling in the oven. Nutmeg is being steered by the
autopilot - I haven't yet connected up the Aries.
I set up an SSB radio net although we didnt broadcast
the frequencies to the fleet, but Ertan (Lazy Otter) and I had a nice chat this
evening, so it is good to know this works. Next chat at 0800 UTC (0900
BST)
Thats all for now. More tomorrow
hopefully!
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