The Ego has landed!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 7 Dec 2009 14:39
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At 0928 on Friday December the 4th after gybing
between 16 and 18 north for 10 days, we arrived at our waypoint at the entrance
to Falmouth Harbour Antigua. We are now at 17:01.25N 061:46.58W moored up at a
small marina. We sailed an incredibly long total of 3678 miles, on our
conservative route choice of south to 17 degrees north, then west, in
17days 21hours. This is a respectable average sailing speed of 8.6knots but
an incredibly slow average of 6.9 knots along our rhumb line track which
was 2950 miles. We were unlucky with the direction and strength of the wind
just as much as we were lucky with the direction and strength of the wind. The
wind was about and average of 15 knots directly behind us. Unlucky. On
the other hand the wind could have been 30 knots right on the nose.
Lucky!
Surprisingly, the arrival at Antigua was
strangely anti-climactic and it took most of the day to let everything sink in.
However the reality of what we had done, along with a gallon of rum punch
had thoroughly sunk in by the end of the night.
I can honestly say the whole crew did an excellent
job in delivering our two main objectives: to be a SAFE ship and to be a HAPPY
ship. No fall off's and no fall out's.
I have now sailed Rhiann Marie just under 6000
miles and we are starting to get to know each other. However, just as we were
about to enter the harbour on Friday, we went to switch on the generator
and she would run for 30 seconds and stop. I puzzled over it for
several days eliminating one possibility after another. Finally I worked
out that it was a good old fashioned raw water impeller problem which caused the
exhaust temperature sender to shut off the fuel.
Today, Monday we are now sending the 1st mate the
chef and the ABS back to Scotland and picking up our Canadian relations to spen
a week or so with us. First we will spend the day on the beach. I am well behind
with my work but hopefully I can catch up in the next couple of
days.
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