Position Tuesday 5th December 12.00 (ships time) 14:22.8N 51:33.0W

 

A recent incoming communication to the good ship Moose had requested more photos of the boat and the big sails, always willing to please, Moose’s crew jumped in to action, so I guess the question of the day is... was anyone really crazy enough to go up the mast in a two metre swell (swell once again not clear from the photos)?

 

 

 

 

Having sat still for more than 5 minutes, someone decided today was the day to make some  "baggywrinkle"!

 

Baggywrinkle is a traditional method of preventing chafing (in the sails) it is made from six inch long single strands of old rope, held in place between two lengths of small diameter cord.

 

 

Time consuming but very therapeutic, the production line was a thing of beauty.

 

 

The fruits of our labour were then ready for installation

 

 

Once complete the baggywrinkle was wrapped around the port bow guard rail where the gennaker was occasionally touching, hopefully preventing damage to the big blue beautiful sail.

 

 

Having thought the morning’s mast shots were good enough to make it in to Yachting World Magazine the captain decided to kill two pigeons with one arrow and set about creating a whisker pole for the head sail, using the boom while also demonstrating to the magazine how much he loves their publication.

 

 

 

Simon Rowell our shore based weather advisor had let us know that we may see squalls as we got nearer to St Lucia, so captain Guy fully briefed us all on what to do if we should see one approaching in the night, he made it clear the most important part of that briefing was to wake him up in good time. So when the following “nasty” appeared on the radar screen we immediately put an Electronic Bearing Line (the diagonal line dropping down from the centre of the screen) on the northerly edge of the squall (the bit most likely to hit us) and watched to see if it moved away from the line, it didn't, it was therefore coming at us! A swift knocking on Guy and Rose’s Cabin door soon followed.

 

 

With the very capable Rose operating the winches and the boys on the foredeck, we soon had the gennaker furled away and tied down on the deck like a big blue anaconda. Fortunately the squall moved off to our port side and apart form a large shift in the wind direction and a few spots of rain it caused us little trouble. Better safe than sorry, some of these squalls can have winds over 30 knots, much more than our genakker can cope with. When Guy was happy it was safe, the gennaker was hoisted and unfurled and Moose was sailing again, as the squall moved away the wind shift slowly returned to its original direction and we sailed west toward St Lucia now less than 500 miles away.

 

If I tell you we are hoping to arrive on Friday evening,  promise me you will not let Neptune know !!