Day 24 - Of nerves rediscovered and spinnakers
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Tue 14 Dec 2010 15:24
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14:12.78N
57:11.19W
Our nerve is back, I'm glad to say, after a timid
passage of 24 hours. The fearsome spinnakoo was hoisted yesterday afternoon at
about 3pm (SUmmer Song Time) and did a grand job of dragging us through the
water for six hours until after supper. At this point, the beast disgraced
itself yet again by entwining itself around the gib as William bent his head to
scoop up some curry.
We had a lively night at 6 or 7 knots, steaming
along under part reefed main and poled out gib, averaging a hearty 6.5 miles per
hour. This was fun from the Skipper's fo'c'sle berth, where the urgent gurgling
of water past the hull and the snap of the sail above one's head is a constant
reminder of our progress. There is also a ping-pong ball effect when the First
Mate is in residence, and we're both building up good core strength from wedging
ourselves fore and aft to resist lateral movement.
Sleep can be hard in these conditions, but every
berth has its peculiarities. Graham's saloon berth, considered the most
comfortable by discerning hot-bunkers, gets a lot of noise from the mast and the
rigging, which connects to the hull around Graham's toes. Will's foxhole in the
stern gets a fearsome gurgling past the propellor and the rudder, as well as
trampling from whoever's on watch in the cockpit above. As First Mate Alex often
engages in cockpit yoga, as well as dancing to cheesy europop during her watch,
this can be a lively berth. Oh, and the engine, where the issue is less one of
white noise, and more one of titanic heat.
Nonetheless, it was a beautiful starry, moonlit
night and as we were on a broad reach, rather than the usual dead run, we were
able to engage the Hydrovane. This frees up the person on watch to move about,
make tea, dance to Ke$ha or ruminate on the meaning of being such a small speck
in the middle of such a huge universe. Also, eating Oreos.
The spinnakoo went up before breakfast and we were
just settling into concentrated tiller watches when something pinged off the
masthead. Never a dull moment with the chute, we quickly realised that we'd
sheared through another shackle holding up the spinnaker halyard. Here was the
opportunity that Big 'Billy Bowline' Bax had been waiting for. "Oh, let me do
it, pleeeeeease," he lobbied. "I wannna go up the maaaaast." Looks were
exchanged between the putative winchers, but it was hard to deny him entry to
the mid-Atlantic chapter of the Maharajah of Spinnakah - the only fellow not to
get hauled up to the masthead while rolling through 60 degrees.
Twenty minutes later, William was kitted out in the
turban made from a pink towel, a fine cushion-induced bosom, boots and long
trousers. Thirty minutes later he was swinging from the masthead like some sort
of crazed ape, fixing the spinnaker block back on with a new, beefier shackle.
As I type, he's recharging his batteries in the hot bunk.
So, as the wind drops again, we can get the
mercurial spinnaker back up, to keep ploughing on towards our destination. We're
barely 40 hours out, with the clock ticking down towards 200 miles. Despite the
sense of keen anticpation, there is also a tinge of regret that our solitary,
self-sufficient and other-worldly way of life is coming to an end. When will any
of us next spend a month under the stars in a benign climate, or watching
dolphins play under the bow and long-tailed tropic birds circling the
mast?
Of course, far from being the end of one story, it
is the beginning of the next, and one that we're all eagerly looking forward
to...
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