Thursday 26 Nov
Race Day 4
So, we are 4 days in to our Atlantic crossing. In typical offshore sailing style our few days at sea have merged in to a series of four and six hour watches, waking and sleeping several times in any one 24 hour period. Time and reality change, morning becomes evening, breakfast, dinner time; any time of the day being “good morning” to someone.
The pre-race parties are but a distant memory as boat life and banter are in full swing. Pineapples have been decorated with faces and hidden around the place, Dave entertains us with his daily jokes (todays being particularly cheesy; “what did the cheese say to himself in the mirror? Hel-ou-mi” ..and so on! Help us!) and the crew are bonding well.
4am conversations have been in full flow, ranging from small talk to deep conversations and then the usual over-tired, hysterical ramblings about absolutely nothing, causing much giggling! Tall tales, stories of past adventures and dreams of future ones pushing the crews morale forwards even in the sleepy small hours of the morning.
The sea state on the whole has provided much entertainment, being a reasonable size at times and providing interesting helming conditions…especially when looking back to see large towers of dark water charging towards the boat before dipping beneath the hull at the last moment and surging our little island that is Challenger 3 onwards through the ocean.
Last night took quite a bit of concentration to keep the boat on a steady heading, difficult wave combinations and a wind that would gust and then die off to leave us bobbing like a toy on the waves. Any lapse in concentration would result in our little 72foot world veering off on a wave, heeling over, occasionally dipping the boom in the dark waters for a rinse, before fighting the helm to shoot back in the opposite direction, correcting early enough not to go too far and gybe the mainsail. Half hour helming rotations of those that were keen kept us, for the most part, on track…and the sleeping crew below, in their bunks!
The moon has been full and spectacular for the last few evenings. An eerie, silver glow has cloaked the boat casting shadows across the mainsail right through the night, an endless dusk.
An odd arch stretched from the ocean across the sky, a metallic glow vaguely tainted with the colours of the rainbow…a moonbow! Never seen one of those before! Amazing!
After long nights, stunning sunrises (and moonrises for that matter) have entranced the crew to stop and stare as colours streak across the night sky and dawn quickly appears for another day in the middle of The Atlantic Ocean.
Blood sweat and tears have gone in to painstakingly repairing our precious Yankee 1, a multi watch effort has seen the 6 metre tear, cleaned, patched, tacked and double sewn; all by hand on a bouncing deck over the last two days. Excitement has been high as a large pod of dolphins came to play on the bow wave yesterday and we hit 763 miles, leaving 2000 to go (…as the crow flies, a fair few manoeuvres and wind shifts could increase that a wee bit more!).
Being an ocean race, we are, on the whole out of sight and communications of other vessels. We are down wind sailing and there is little more we can do to trim our sails and urge our boat to glide faster. We excitedly and anxiously await our midday race position updates to see where we lie in the fleet and to mark our progress. Unlike shorter races our conditions may be very different from other boats, and so, we can all only do our best with the weather at hand, try not to make too many mistakes or break boat or crew.
The wind has changed, and although the saying goes that skippers get nosebleeds if they venture beyond the mast, Ricky is playing on the foredeck getting the next sail plan up and running…but tactically I best not divulge that information to any of the competitionJ.
This morning, whilst cooking breakfast, Jerry recounted his story from the night watch, where he saw a ball of fire falling from sky to sea. There were not streaks and it did not fall fast and burn out…so a comet or meteor has been ruled out, this has caused much speculation amongst the crew…but then its Jerry and long nights at sea can do strange things to a person ;).
Anyway, for me its back to Mother Watch; cleaning the heads, cooking and making some chocolate brownies (or something that resembles them!)
Just in, hot of the press, Starboard watch disappointed with hoisting a boring white spinnaker have now decorated it with go faster blue stripes also known as anti-foul! Work that one out…yes sails go in the sky…and anti-foul lives under the hull of the boat!
Hello and love to all you guys back home!
Kirstie, Watch Leader Challenger 3
Jerry, star gazer...
Lorraine, hope the induction day went well and good luck for the new job on Monday (Dave, Mate).
As Kirstie eluded to, this morning’s Spinnaker hoist was all but traditional. Traditionally the spinnaker stays in the bag and the spinnaker gets hoisted up to the top of the mast before it is sheeted on and flies beautifully. This morning’s hoist saw the whole sail in the water before staring the hoist and then having to winch up a bag of water 85 up the mast. It took a while.
Thankfully no damage done and apart from a none too slick operation, and a bit of embarrassment it is all good. A good lesson on how not to do it.
So we are back sailing under spinnaker, making an excellent course practically straight to the finish line. We gybed yesterday afternoon and are now on a West South West course following our noses to the Rum Line…
The Yankee 1 is all patched up and we will hopefully see it up late this afternoon for a stint of night sailing under polled out headsail. Everyone who has poured hours into hand stitching and has left a trail of blood marks from pricked fingers on the sail cloth is hoping that it goes up and stays up without ripping again.
The food continues to be excellent with inventive “mothers” balancing the planned meals for the day with the fresh crop of ripening fruit and vegetables.
Ricky (Skipper)
Ricky Chalmers
Skipper
Challenger 3