Trippwire
Thu 3 Dec 2009 12:36
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A very hot hello from Trippwire! Today it is
Scorchio, with a capital S.
The last 24 hours have been rather less hectic than
the previous, with only a couple of 1 boxer short reefs to be taken, and a
gradually moderating wind. It has left a rather uncomfortable swell, that makes
walking around and cooking pretty tricky. It does however create the odd
entertainment, such as Jennifer standing under a hatch that had been dry all
day, and getting a proper soaking...she had only just come down below so that
she could stay dry!
On the progress front, the milestone today has been
surpassing the sub 1000 miles to go mark. In fact, if you headed south from here
you would hit Brazil..so it definitely feels as if we are making progress.
Talking about which, Richard (Jens brother who has been sending in very helpful
daily position in class updates) and anyone else who has been following our
position, would have noticed a distinct backward progress against the fleet. I
can assure you that this is not because we have been sitting on our hands, but
(stand back Nelson), is aimed at a spectacular tactical coup, which will only be
realised on arrival. In summary, this amounts to getting as much southing in as
we can, because we think that the wind is going to turn North East for the last
few days, and if it does so, anyone in the north is going to struggle to get
southward without sailing a very deep angle. If it does not, we will look very
silly indeed! This guesstimate has been backed up
by some of Dom's fancy gadgetry, a program called deckman. We were lead to
believe that this would be the answer to all our routing questions and even make
us an omlette in a force 9. Reality is that it either routes you to New York and
back, or, more regularly, crashes. It has become the cruellest question on the
boat to ask Dom to tell us what his 'deck hand' would do! But finally, and 11 or
so days in, it seems that he has it working, and amazingly has told us to go
exactly where we were going.....hurray!
We have finally thrown out the remaining fresh
lettuce on the basis that it was dripping green goo, and so are now into
cans...tonight we will be donning open toed sandals and hitting lentil
street....all very disappointing!
So, a thankfully rather uneventful blog - no
dramas, no crises and very warm and sunny 15-20 knots of wind from the
SSE.....and, even better, a full moon all night, that is so light that you could
almost read a book from it. The water situation seems to be good (albeit still
with a little eau de diesel), and for the moment it has been just too bumpy and
too hot to get around to looking at the faulty watermaker.
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