Fw: Sadko update 13 June 2000
Sadko
Martin Lamport
Thu 14 Jun 2012 13:39
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32deg38'N, 50deg29' W.
The wind died last night and we motored for several
hours with cloud cover and no moon. It seemed rather murky, so kept our
first radar watch. Lightening flashed and flickered on the eastern
horizon, like some distant Jutland. About 0330 the wind picked up enough
to sail again.
I take it all back! At about 6 AM we
successfully landed Dora, the dorado, a magnificent golden pelagic fish, reputed
to be good eating. By 0700 the spinnaker was up and we have run for 11
hours at between 7 and 8 knots, in the right direction, more or less
east. Hugo and Lou have taught me a lot about spinnaker drill, about which
I was lamentably ignorant, and getting it up and down has become a reasonably
slick operation. Steering downwind in a rolling sea is another matter and
I made a complete hash of it at first, until Lou kindly gave me some
tuition. It requires constant attention and anticipation from the
helmsperson (Lou is brillant at it) to avoid building up an uncontrolable roll
and yaw oscillation. But we are all geting better with
practice.
A big container ship passed close to us
and Hugo called them up on the VHF to establish they were the Glasgow
Express, bound from Rotterdam to the Dominican Republic.
Dora, gutted and filleted, provided some
splendid fish steaks and a Peruvian style ceviche for our evening
celebration. This party was for crossing our first time zone boundary, so
we are now only 3 hours behind GMT and more than half way to Flores.
Tomorrow's will be for counting longitude in 40s rather than 50's.
The social whirl is killing me!
signing out
Martin
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