Day 23 - Wafting along under blue skies
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Mon 13 Dec 2010 15:48
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14:12.33N
54:41.55W
Our nerve has failed, readers. Once the
devil-may-care purveyors of spinnaker sailing at any time of day or night, we
find ourselves reduced to mainsail-and-poled-out-gib types. We're still buzzing along at 6 knots, mind you, but not the
7.5 we'd be doing with the chute up.
We had a crack last night, but quickly snuffed the
beast after nightfall, as dark clouds ranged up behind us, threatening the onset
of the usual night squalls. In fact, these brooding menaces brought exactly the
opposite: a real drop off in the wind, such that by 5am, we were motoring again
for a couple of hours. The wind came back this morning, so we had another go
after breakfast. A combination of imaginative spinnaker rigging by the foredeck
crew and a resurgent wind condemned that effort too.
There's a slight feeling that we could be going
faster this morning, although everyone seems to be enjoying taking it easy after
a couple of days of difficult jobs on board. Alex is showering on the foredeck
with the water from the main tanks, which is nigh on undrinkable - thank
goodness for the watermaker! Will is topping up his tan at the tiller, in the
dappled shade of the bimin-ning (a curious cross between bimini and awning,
which satisfies neither description fully). And Graham is working on the plat du
jour, which involves tuna, sweetcorn and pitta breads.
Yesterday saw our progress slacken noticeably.
First because of unsceduled plumbing issues and second, due to a rip in the
spinnaker from its midnight plunge overboard last week. It meant that we wafted
along slowly for much of the day, ticking off just 2 degrees of longitude in the
24 hour spell. Consequently, we saw a boat absolutely roar past us on the
horizon this morning, apparently flying the spinnaker. Still, at this more
comfortable pace, we should easily make the cut off for the ARC.
The crew is still restless and I imagine it will
only get worse as we close the finishing line. We should hit the 300-mile mark
at some point tonight which means probable arrival on Thursday morning. The
challenge is to keep everyone busy so they can't brood too much on the delights
of cold beers, fresh water showers and being reunited with babies and
wives.
We were hailed by none other than Honingpupp
yesterday, the boat to whom we transferred a filter to get their engine up and
running again. The connection was poor - we could hear them, but they couldn't
hear us, but we gathered enogh to hear their engine clunking along in the
background. "If you can hear this, Summer Song," said their skipper, "it's the
sound of cold beers! See you in St Lucia for some
more!"
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