Champagne Sailing
Rik
Sun 19 Nov 2023 15:43
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15:03.599N 28:41.021W I believe the time in the UK right now is 13:25 which means here (depending where here is) it’s probably 12:25 but on Moose “ship’s time” is 09:25. We will sail through three time zones to get to the Caribbean so to minimise confusion with multiple time changes we have gone straight to St George’s time All watches and phones have been changed to ship’s time and hopefully everyone will turn up to their night watch on time. It all works rather well, once you get your head round sunrise is at 3:58 and sunset at 15:22 ! We are considerably faster when flying the spinnaker, but it can be quite needy and requires a bit of attention, given the opportunity it will wrap itself round the head stay so flying it at night is a risky business and not one that I am prepared to take. So we are now getting into the routine of hoisting at first light and dousing at last light, trying to get as many spinnaker hours as possible. Hoisting is far from a simple process, we are getting faster but this morning it still took five crew about half an hour !! Dousing is equally demanding and slightly more risky in that if it goes wrong we will run out of light, and worse than that we will be late for dinner.  The above photo is the team getting the spinnaker back in its bag for the night. A slight delay meant the chips accompanying our steaks were extra crispy. The repair to the spinnaker seems to be holding up well, it seemed so big when we were taping it up but now looks so small 20m up in the air.   Yesterday was champagne sailing especially when we overtook “Pinnacle”, it took all afternoon but was a great achievement and another place higher in “Multihulls B”  Romantic couples on the dolphins seat  
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