Yee ha! We passed the half way mark at 2am today. Finally, we are counting down rather than up. Bloody hell … this is a long passage and I am losing all sense of time. Today we will celebrate with a small glass of wine to go with our roast chicken dinner … I can not wait! Definitely feeling the need for that glass of cold Rioja.
More excitement today as we change all the laundry - clean everything for the second half. I know … small things but there are standards on this boat!
We are getting more adventurous with our sails. Today we managed to get the cruising chute up (our biggest, lightest and most colourful sail). It took 2 hours and 3 attempts before we finally had it. Patrick and I had a significant work out trying to haul the snuffer up the sail (the snuffer is like a long condom covering the sail - as you roll it back, the sail is released and unfurls). Having only got the snuffer half way up twice and having used all our strength to do so, we lowered the sail back down to the deck to discover the shackle at the very top of the sail had been damaged. Hey ho … there is always a reason things are hard. 3rd time lucky and hooray - it looks fabulous. Vindicated in my recommendation to spend 2 hours getting the sail up (Captain P had just got out of bed and wasn’t enthusiastic!), I was keen to build on my success. What about poling the Genoa out on the other side of the boat? Another first for Mistral. Finally we are flying!! Well … not exactly flying but definitely going at least 1 to 2 knots faster than we have been in incredibly light winds. I’m really pleased … we have seen some of our fellow Arc sailors racing past us and haven’t been able to work it out … more creativity on the sail plan might be the answer!
Onward, onward … Groundhog Day again.
PS Cribbage championship not going quite to plan - Patrick is 3/2 up … grrr …😖