This has been the longest day so far. Very little wind, talking here of 6 knots most of the time. Thank goodness for the favourable current of up to 3 knots pushing us along the right path.
The fishing line is out, but even the fish are too lethargic to do anything.
For a change we thought we'd put up the big gennaker sail, see if could pull us along. So the genoa came down and we started the repairs. The gennaker went up, and about 5 minutes later it fell down into the sea. This seems to be its favourite place. We fished it out and found that the shackle holding it up was still up the mast. Up went Shin on the end of a halliard, tied the shackle and rope to his belt and down he came. This time it was properly attatched to the sail, and up went the sail. After about 30 minutes we took it down again as the snuffer ( a sock that goes over the sail to pull it down) was falling down on its own. We found a small plastic fitting was broken so a new one was put on and then the sail went up again. It is still up. Shin in the meantime has stitched up the rip and put sail repair tape over as well. The genoa is back on the forestay and rolled up ready for use tonight.
As all this was happening I had to attend the radio roll call! Can't miss out on that as we need to know where the other boats are. An email arrived this morning from World ARC control telling us about some boats that didn't make the start of this leg. There are 13 of them, although some set off today after various repairs and others are still working on the boats.
Val made up toasted tuna sandwiches and coleslaw for lunch, very tasty. It took a while to find the toaster as it had been stored away on one of the bunks.
Bruce, our weather guru in Perth, sends us new waypoints to aim for each day. He enables us to avoid any bad weather and hopefully find good winds to keep our speed up. For example yesterday Bruce told us to be south of 3 degrees as there would be thunderstorms and lightning north of that line. Sure enough last night we could see lightning behind us many miles away over the horizon, and it looked really violent as well.
For anyone interested our position as I write this at 11 PM Dublin/London time is -
03 42.47S and 094 21.35W
Our speed through the water is 3.9 knots and our speed over the ground is 5.0 knots.
Wind speed is 7 to 9 knots.
We are 300 miles (of the nautical variety) to the south west of the Galapagos Islands.
2 comments:
Hi Val,
I sent email to you today and would love to know if you received it! (not that I expect an answer) just trying to see if ommunication systems are working ok ! Can you you let me know on the blog - thanks Val - love to all.
M x
Hi Val and Hugh and Crew. Great to see you moving along deeper into The Pacific ocean heading for Oceania on route to the world's largest island. I looked at your location on the Google thingimagig and as you sail off into the wide blue yonder , with no land to hand, I got a feeling of vertigo, and as a committed landlubber I was also overcome by a tremendous Awe and Wonder at the Magnificence of it all. God bless all who sail in BlueFlyer,
Lots of love,
Alan and Moya.
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