Jack Rowland Smith - Log Day 3 - JACK Rowland Smith goes Fishing

Morning All

Well firstly a huge thank you to all our friends and family who answered our question as to “where we are in the fleet”. Our Sat Mail was flooded with lovely little (or not so little) pictures, which is an issue in itself as the mail got clogged, but apparently we are the blue boat in the middle of a sea of colours and tracking lines....... in short we are not much wiser but there is a blue boat in the lead so that must be us and we march on in ignorant bliss.

So to day three. It started with a bit of a crisis with the realisation at 7.00am that the water would not be hot enough for Sue’s 8.00am shower (not good). So on went the generator to heat the water, but at the same time we decided to make some more water as Sue only showers in the best water so on went the water maker; oh and we needed the batteries charged following a night at sea. So our trusted generator had some hard work to do first thing but such is the running of a modern day cruiser.

Now turning to the small matter of the “great fish off” between John and Ben. Well those lures (no idea on spelling) I mentioned in yesterday’s blog came into their own when Ben drew first blood (if you pardon the expression) with a 7kg Mahi Mahi. Much excitement on board, again at the expense of Ben’s GCSE revision, this time PE but we figured fishing is a sport so an allowable distraction.


We made a silly mistake tonight, barrelling along after dinner with our poled out jib and full main we decided not to reef because in both the previous two nights the wind had gone lighter. Not this one, the winds started pushing 25 knots and at 2.00am when our 25 tonne stead hit over 11 knots we decided a couple of reefs in the main were needed. So Genoa was wound in pole still attached, then a slow head up and, after clearing a few reefing line twists, the 2nd reef was successfully set. Skipper John however was not happy as we got seawater on the pristine deck during the heading up manoeuvre, apparently he was not expecting to get water on the deck during the whole trip so the foredeck crew (that will be me) was not very popular for such slow reef setting work!

So to the trip and where we are. Well we continue our march south. We benefited yesterday from a “right shift off the Sahara desert” (according to our racing crew Ben) and that allowed us to soak down a bit and get a little westing in to our course but we maintained our port tack stance, not wanting to go too far west at this point for fear of running into lighter winds north of the Cape Verdes. Having said all this, the wind strength and direction over night has forced us to give some of our westing back. The thing we have noticed from the various pictures of the ARC tracker we received was that there is a breakaway with some boats seemingly pointing their noses for St Lucia and going for it. Based on yesterday’s forecast we think it is too early to do that and we are sticking to our plan. We need wind to get Jack going and so for us sticking in the breeze is key and that, for us, is south.

So that is day three. We have two crew who still prefer open air to the confines of the cabin, we staved off a mutiny yesterday morning by running the generator just in time and yours truly needs some sleep as the aft cabin resembles more a washing machine than a cabin as we fly down waves in double figure speeds. Over all that there was the excitement of our first fish and guess what, just as I finish writing this we have a shoal of dolphin playing off the bow of the boat - a bucket list moment for me.

Yours

Nick (poor foredeck worker but good fish adviser)