AZAB Day 5 Thurs 6th June - day/night of two halves
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Thu 6 Jun 2019 20:27
Shortly after sending my blog last night, the wind disappeared, completely. Basically we are in the middle of a big low pressure, with a storm to the south (off NW Spain) and we spent last night trapped in the no-wind hole at the centre. There wasnt a lot we could do about it - Nutmeg just isnt fast enough to sail around stuff like this, so you just have to get on with it. But when I say no wind, that doesnt mean no waves, and it also means torrential downpours - so it is incredibly noisy! Sails banging from side to side, it sounds like someone is whacking a sledgehammer on the mast, plus all the tins and bottles and all other stores that arent wedged in, are all bashing back and forth. Eventually I took all the sails down, lashed the helm, and slept with a pillow over my ears!
We sat in no wind for six whole hours. I did learn the lesson from the last one of these (whatever day that was) - that rather than follow my instinct to try and get the boat moving and tweak the sails - the right thing to do is to get some sleep because inevitably you;re going to get a load of breeze afterwards and you need to be awake for it. Thats where I went wrong a few days back, and I felt horrendous then.
So other than getting up every hour to check if anything had changed, I did actually get some good sleep. In the morning the breeze gradually built and we actually had a nice sail in the morning. But the log says it all - only 38 miles covered between midnight and midday - arrghh!
However, by about 1130 the forecast NWly kicked in strong, and ever since then we have had between 25 & 32 kts of breeze just aft of the beam. We've been sailing with 3 reefs in the main and equivalent in the jib - the reefed main can't be much bigger than one of the kid's Tera sails, but this 10-tonne old lady has still been pushing along at 6-8 kts all day. It's pretty brutal motion and very wet - we've been zipped into the cockpit but the waves still find a way in. We've been steered by the Aries windvane all day - it really is fantastic. Only concern is chafe on the lines as it is working hard. Also notice the ensign pole has ripped off the deck, and one of the fire extinguisher brackets has also torn off. Minor damage which can be fixed. I think I will also need to get the jib stitched in the Azores as theres a few threads showing loose.
The forecast is due to drop overnight and I'm really hoping tomorrow is a nice day - moderate breeze and maybe some sunshine for us to dry out! I've no idea how we are doing vs other boats - I had a chat via VHF with Saffier yesterday but I've not seen anyone on AIS all day. I assume everyone is ahead of us, given our rating.
Domestic news - we broke into one of our three Cartmel Sticky Toffee Puddings tonight - OMG that stuff is amazing! Emilia is enjoying my Friday Night News Quiz podcasts, and we've done a few more crosswords - not been the best conditions for settling down with a book. Emilia is a resilient little thing - she's faced all this rough weather without a murmur, and she is great company.