Lancelot II - Day 5 - Eat, Sleep, Sail, Repeat...

Eat, Sleep, Sail, Repeat... had been the routine for the first few days. Yesterday, however, saw a little rest in proceedings as the wind disappeared and we sat in full sunshine for most of the day at around 0.0 knots. Skipper Jacko cooked up a very welcome full English breakfast and we relaxed in the sun before capitalising on the conditions and deciding to go for that legendary ‘swim in the middle of the Atlantic’ with nothing but two and a half miles of crystal blue water below us. To make things even better we were joined by a pilot whale / very large dolphin which slowly circled just in front of the boat a few times as if trying to say something before diving vertically down and finally out of sight. Once the wind returned we had the opportunity to try out Jacko’s repair job on a spinnaker that was destroyed a few shifts back. The aptly nick-named ‘Frankenstein kite’, despite missing a large section of material from its entire length, appeared to work just as well taped back together as it did previously and Jacko was buzzing for the rest of the day! Photo’s were taken as evidence and, regardless of the expense, triumphantly relayed back to base. The day was then topped off by an amazing beef and pasta dinner, courtesy of Annette.

After such a calm day at sea of course there had to be a sting and we’ve spent most of the night battling through some rather testing conditions. The lack of moonlight and dense cloud means night-time sailing at the moment is in almost pitch black at times and concentrating on our heading by squinting at the dimly lit display up ahead on the mast takes some doing, as does trying to convince your brain that you’re not being centrifugally thrown to one side all the time - it’s just the boat healing over, a lot.