2016-11-28 15.30 UTC Boat time
TEAM SANYA VO70
We are in the last 700 miles and finally going almost straight to Saint Lucia. Today feels like Caribbean sailing as advertised in the brochure, sun, light winds, fresh fruit and good company. Everybody is catching up on his or her sleep and the first practical jokes are in the making. Picking up after my last blog of the 26th, we have been the most northerly boat and picked up the winds as the first boat. We gained on Trifork, and regained the third place on the Woodpecker, who has been motoring on the rum line. We had our masterclass "Patching up sails on the Atlantic", where all the men flocked around our captain and naviguessor, to watch how the Masthead was patched and after the patching, how to furl a 500m sail by hand on the deck of a VO70. Meanwhile the women were sailing the boat, as the sailing was temporarily fully ignored during the masterclass. I guess there are always differences between men and women. After this successful masterclass, we actually changed the s
ails to the masthead and the J4, with light winds into the night. Sundown was a strange sight, as all around us dark clouds were building up and everywhere around us thunder and lightning cracked through the skies. We prepared for a lot of wind, but instead it seemed that all wind was being sucked up. Very strange and eerie feeling..and than it started pouring rain, but still no wind and it stayed like that for hours. The instruments had a sketchy day again, where they were sometimes working, but most of the time not. So don't talk to the driver, as it was hard to keep her going on a good average. During the other watch we lost our starboard primary winch, so again repairs for during daylight. Without one primary winch, it is hard to get all the sail changes and sheets correctly done. When my watch came up, we really lost all the winds. We were floating for two hours with zero on the clock in the middle of the Atlantic. We rolled up the masthead and kept the J4 as windsee
ker, while lightning was still around us. A very strange night. Finally the winds picked up by the end of the night. So again we changed for the J1 with one reef in the main and we powered towards Saint Lucia. In the morning shift these nice winds continue, up to 20 knots while the competition is moving with 5 knots. We have to gain now on the competition as we have the advantage to be in the new winds as the first boat. So again a sail change for the FRO & J4 as the angle of the winds is a bit better for the FRO now. And again time for another masterclass, this time; "Repairing a primary winch on the Atlantic". This started out in a curious way, as the captain started dancing on the winch, in the hope that this would 'magically' repair the winch. When it didn't work, he tried hammering the winch. I had second thoughts about both methods, and they didn't work. So when the winds got a bit quieter in the afternoon, it was taken apart and it was made serviceable again, however
without the self tailing. Wear and tear is starting to show, as almost everyday the crew had some broken shifts, due to these masterclasses. So the motto for every change is Check Check and Double Check. This was followed by a nice quiet night, where for a change nothing was broken, there were no big winds and the instruments even kept working. And today, well as I started out, today was real Carribean sailing. This inspired most people to take a nice shower on the back of the boat, and the crew to catch up on their sleep. We are now on our way directly to Saint Lucia, but we are still anxiously looking at where the winds will be, as we still hope to gain more on our competition and keep in better winds. So waiting for the following position report, we will keep pushing the boat today and keep going. Saint Lucia, we are coming!
OBR a.i. Mariette Koekoek