Nothing
significant to report but sunshine, the occasional shower and a fresh breeze
from astern. And waves, waves, waves.
Our daily
weather forecast, supplied daily via email by Weather Routing Inc (who they?
Ed), is sent to us every day at just after 0700 GMT (UTC or ZULU for those in
need of translation, or 7 o'clock in the morning for civvies). The Skipper aims
to download emails twice a day, normally at about 1100 and 1700. The forecast,
which he supplements with Grib Files from Mailasail, is a detailed synopsis and
a human forecasters interpretation of it. This is understandable, but sometimes
it is difficult to relate the interactions of high and low pressure systems in
the North West Atlantic to the conditions were are experiencing in the lower
latitudes. There follows detailed data predictions at twelve hourly intervals
for the different areas of the fleets varying routes from Gran Canaria to St
Lucia. The spread is important, because now the yachts in the fleet are
separated from front to back by about 1300 miles and north to south by about 300
miles. The importance of the windspeed direction and strength is obvious. Of
near equal importance are the predictions of swell and wave height. Big swells,
which may be generated many miles away, pose few problems for little yachts. We
rise sedately upwards with them, and fall equally sedately down behind them as
they pass. The local winds generate their own waves. These can be choppy in
their own right, but when they move across rather than with the accompanying
swell, they can create steep and sometimes breaking waves, which can be most
uncomfortable and occasionally dangerous.
Cleone's
favourite way of dealing with these conditions when going downwind is to
goosewing. We suitably reef the mainsail and balance it with a similarly-sized
genoa poled out on the other side of the main-mast. In this case, we have
wind-gusts of 25knots plus so we have three reefs in the mainsail and most of
the genoa remains furled around the fore-stay. Everything is braced, with sheets
and preventers on the mainsail, and up-hauls and down-hauls on the spinnaker
boom. Mostly Cleone rides comfortably up and down the waves, corkscrewing gently
as the swells catch her from behind and, assisted by the helm, twist her over
the top and down the back of the swell. Below decks, as the lockers get emptier,
tins, boxes, bottles etc start sliding around, so we spend time identifying
rattles and crashes and padding the spaces with empty plastic water
bottles, rags and anything else we can find to hand. Most significant has been
the unwanted movement of the spare fuel cans; there are four of these in the
Anchor Locker and four of them in the Cockpit Well. A whiff of diesel in the
fore cabin suggested that all might not be well up forrard, and a visit by Kaya
and Skipper confirmed that this was the case. Somehow the top of one the cans
had worked its way completely off, and the rest of the cans had loosened their
moorings and were sliding around in unison. We have probably lost half a can of
spare fuel, but we have re-secured everything else by wedging spare lines around
them. Let's hope this works; please keep your fingers crossed for us; we have
only just over 1500 miles to go!
Loulou B, the
Duty DJ, has just started mixin and scratchin and the mosh-pit in the cockpit is
heaving with screaming, waving twenty year olds pretending they are still
teenagers. They are singing and dancing along to their favourite bands, and
since not a drop of alcohol has passed their lips, I have got no idea how they
stand the noise. How on earth will the Skipper cope with this? Security won't
even let him out of the cabin as he tries to seek refuge on the
foredeck.
With very best
wishes and love to you all,
James,
Francesca, Louisa and Kaya
Yacht
Cleone
At
sea
Position at
1200UTC on 04 Dec 2024:
N20deg57min
W35deg15min