15:04N 44:51W
Ahoy land lovers,
The days after a big event are regularly calm and quiet, however when at
sea nothing is as easy as you'd hope - especially when you've had a tuna
steak the size of a dinner plate the night before!
Following last nights halyard failure the crew were at their posts at
sunrise and Gaetan was immediately up the 28m high mast to assess the
damage. It soon became apparent that the spinnaker halyard had sheered
under friction wear and tear and the halyard had dropped down inside the
mast and coulldn't be pulled back out. Operations to re-thread the line
through the mast were slow going with with Gaetan cannibalising both the
tool box and fishing tackle & making a further 3 trips up and down the
mast attempting to repair the damage. Following a number of
unsuccessful attempts to route the line through the mast it was decided
that we would run external rigging - a further trip to the top saw
Gaetan return with a smile on his face, which was a welcome relief from
some of the choice language we'd experienced earlier in the morning!
Respect where it's due though, Gaeten delivered and kept us in the race
- great work skip!
After a quick brunch, the code zero sail was retrieved from the forepeak
crew cabin, repaired and promptly raised whilst we were also running on
the main and genoa - some very nifty ropework! The genoa was
subsequently dropped and we were off at a great pace.
Whilst running repairs were going on above deck, further repairs were
underway below deck. In all the excitement of landing 'the Tuna', Tom's
swimshorts became a casualty of war. Without getting too graphic, Tom's
rear was getting a lot more breeze than normal! Whilst we carry a large
number of spares onboard, unfortunatley a needle and thread wasn't one
of them - no fear though we're an ingenious bunch aboard Shalan and
after a failed attempt with fishing line a suitable replacement was
found... dental floss! The crews blushes have since been spared and
Tom's buttocks are breeze free again, as Borat would say 'great success'!
Lunchtime saw further tuna eating ensue and a check of the emails
whereby Scoopz advised us that the market rate for a Yellow tail of our
size would be c.$2,300! Around this time we subsequently discovered
that a quarter of the fish we'd stored in the ice maker wasn't being
frozen as we'd expected, in fact the ice maker was off and instead of
freezing it was seemingly slowly boiling the meat. The stench when we
opened the door was unreal and made the salon a no-go area for a number
of hours whilst the smell escaped! Wasteful, yes. Costly, yes
(theoretically). But we're sure the sharks/other fish enjoyed the free
lunch!
Excitement is high as we creep under 1,000 miles remaining on the route
guidance and strong winds remain - could we have caught the trade winds?
Obilgatory fishing update: after yesterdays haul we gave the rods,
Captain Hook and Seaman St.Ains the day off. We're sure the clutches on
the reels will be thankful for the rest, as are the crew!
Today's picture is a view from the top of the mast which captures both
the Atlantic ocean and Shalan way below, we like to call it 'man on mast
with sea and boat'.
Peace & love.
'Shalan out'
x
m_G0020507