Starblazer - 15/05/2014 – Slow and wet
Wednesday was a very slow day, averaging less than 4.3 knots from midnight
to midnight. The cockpit finally dried out mid-afternoon and we could take
our wet weather trousers off. The wind wandered around causing us to head
further off course so at noon we tried our first sail change. We had been
making great progress with our twin headsails poled out either side but they
prevented us heading towards the waypoint when the wind veered (went
clockwise) from east to south east. We dropped the poles, gybed the port
hand genoa to starboard (now both headsails are the same side, one on top of
the other) and hoisted the mainsail. Initially this allowed us to sail on
port tack with the wind about 56o from astern, almost towards the waypoint.
The wind wandered about again and the mainsail kept blanketing the genoas
so, just before the evening ssb net, we set up one pole to starboard to hold
the genoas out. This is far from perfect as the sails aren’t quite the same
size which resulted in the sheet of the outer sail chafing through
overnight. This morning’s job was to replace the sheet and feed it through
another snatch block, the inner sail’s sheet is already led through a snatch
block at the end of the pole. I’m sorry if this is all a foreign language
to some but there is no really simple way of describing the problem without
writing reams of explanation.
We have just had a very brief squall pass us, actually we were very lucky as
the radar screen showed a line of 8 squalls heading northwest, line abreast.
We only got in the way of the edge of the smallest one! The wind has now
backed (moved anti-clockwise) from southeast to east northeast so I suspect
we will be changing the sail configuration yet again as we are now sailing a
bit too far south of our line.
Yesterday we successfully made about 120 litres of water, unfortunately some
of it ended up in the bilge courtesy of the split in the lower water tank.
At least the saloon bilge should get cleaner. Not a lot else happened
except that we appeared to go backwards in relation to the rest of the fleet
which is disappointing.
On the culinary front John jointed a chicken, which had been in a box in the
fridge defrosting. I then cooked three different meals, my collection of
foil trays comes in handy as I can fit three on the oven shelf at the same
time. For dinner we had chicken breasts roasted in a piri piri marinade
with roast potatoes, carrots and celery followed by an orange flavoured
concoction I bought in Panama. I make the powder up like a custard, using
less liquid than they specify and it sets quite nicely. The other two
chicken meals are the leg joints roasted with American Steakhouse seasoning
and the inner breasts, wings and odds and ends marinated in a Paella spice
mix, also roasted. At least I don’t have to think too hard about dinner
tonight!
Joyce
p.s. This blog is late again as the computer battery was flat and the
inverter will not charge it and run the computer at the same time. I used
the generator to charge the battery but the power socket is too far away to
put the computer on the nav table…….
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