Date: Thursday, 02 December [14:00 UTC]

 

Our day’s run from 10:00 Wednesday to 10:00 Thursday (today) saw us complete 128 miles. This was under sail and no motoring was required other than using the engine to charge the batteries and generate more drinking water via the water maker which is driven by the engine.

 

We have had pleasant and uninterrupted period of sailing downwind and we have not adjusted our sails in over 24 hours.

 

Temperatures are in the 30’s and the humidity is quite high too (~60% relative humidity) making it sticky, but I guess that it beats the icy conditions back at home.

 

Dinner last night was perfected by Dermot and a few helpers whereupon we enjoyed a starter of fresh melon and Seramo ham followed by penne pasta with a tomato and bacon sauce. 

 

We were entertained by a massive school of dolphins yesterday. They played around the yacht for several minutes and one of the dolphins put on a performance for the crew by himself jumping and belly-flopping in a continuous manner. With every jump the crew cheered him on: we believe he appreciated the acknowledgement!

 

Winds are lighter today with a F2 blowing from the E-SE. Boat speed has dropped to 4 knots.  Various activities are being undertaken on-board today including the removal of many over-ripe bananas. A large stem of bananas was bought before the race on the 20/11 and they were bright green and as hard as nails: they are now soft, squidgy and black and are slowly but surely making their way into the sea! Ivan and Charlie worked on the SSB radio again to again try and establish why it can receive but not transmit. We are pretty sure that the installation of the new SSB has a 12V DC power supply issue (too high a voltage drop) which we cannot resolve at sea without additional lengths of heavy gauge insulated wire connected directly to the batteries.

 

Fishing continues as does the disappointment! Thankfully we aren’t in dire need of food!!

 

Ivan was listening in to one of the ARC broadcasts this morning. The ‘British Soldiers’ yacht entry 228 has been dis-masted. This is one of the Division 1 racing fleet with 10 crew on-board. We are not aware of the circumstances as to whether it was due to gear failure or heavy weather.

 

There have been a few issues with our daily blog not being delivered to the blog web-site despite it being issued promptly each day via email from the yacht.

 

Otherwise, everything is well on ‘Ocean Hobo’ and the crew remain in good spirits.

 

Kind regards,

 

Skipper Ivan and crew.