Monday
12th January 2009
CROSSING THE GREENWICH
MERIDIAN
We are all excited on board the good ship
Quasar. We are about 450 miles away
from St Helena and the yachts are starting to converge close to the rhumb
line. Whilst we?ve lost sight of
Privateer, Viva has appeared on the horizon, as has Windflower III and we?ve
been in VHF contact with both of them.
We?ve been at see now for 9 days and for most of that time we haven?t
seen any other yachts; just one sighting of a ship 8 miles away! Radio contact is twice daily on the SSB,
a high frequency radio, which enables us to chat to the other boats, even the
ones 400 miles up ahead. The VHF
only has a range of roughly 25 miles so you can see why we?ve become a little
excitable having spoken to other boats on the VHF.
In the throes of excitement we decided to hoist
the spinnaker and she?s been up all day.
With 10 ? 12 knots of wind behind us we have been cruising at an average
of 6 knots. Still in excitable mode, we cleaned down the decks with fresh water
and then Malcy rewarded us with another one of his infamous fat boys brunches.
It was devoured in seconds.
Over brunch we agreed to have a fancy dress
party to celebrate crossing the meridian, going from the eastern hemisphere to
the western hemisphere. Malcolm
wore a white bin bag with 7 o-rings stapled to his chest, denoting the
longitude in degrees, minutes and seconds.
Lindsey wore boat made jewellery, necklace,bracelet and earrings made out
of metal washers, and ?W? and ?E? hanging off her hat; Sam was the
Zero Hero, donned with cape (his sarong) and superhero pants worn outside
his shorts, and a Union Jack bandana; Ian wore a grass skirt, coconut bra and
with bare chest had inked on his body the latitude and longitude. Me, well I had defaced a t-shirt with
the following written on the front: ?East is East and West is West and never
the twain shall meet? Rudyard Kipling, and on the back ?So what happens
at the Greenwich Meridian then?? JB.
Can you imagine the 5 of us in the cockpit,
sipping champagne and eating canapés, in our little outfits? In fact at the precise moment we did
cross the meridian we were lowering the spinnaker and rigging the Twistle rig,
all of which was done with the deftness and skill of 5 seasoned sailors.
Although a debate did precede this flurry of activity on the foredeck upon which
I shall elaborate and invite opinion from our dear readers. Malcolm wished to have himself and Sam
on the foredeck, handling the spinnaker and wished for Lindsey and me to be in
the cockpit, handling the sheet, guy, uphaul, downhaul etc. Below is the
dialogue that ensued:
Lindsey
But why can?t JB and I go up on the foredeck and lower the
spinnaker?
Malcolm:
Because I want some one strong on the
foredeck.
Lindsey:
Well I am strong
JB:
Me too (flexing my muscles)
Malcolm:
You?re not strong enough in case something goes
wrong
Lindsey:
But we'?ve lowered the spinnaker loads of
times
Malcolm:
I need a man because he will be stronger if we have problems lowering
the spinnaker.
The conversation was degenerating, and
fast. I acquired the fit of the
giggles as Lindsey cast Malcolm the most scathing of looks and lectured him on
the inappropriateness of making such sexist, but more importantly, unfounded,
comments. Lindsey made haste to her
cabin in disgust to soothe her bruised ego and to rest her aching muscles ? her
last duty had been to make a cup of tea and it took it out of her. Indeed 30 minutes later I was overcome
with exhaustion at opening the bottle of champagne. I?m surprised a man didn?t take that job
from me!!!!
All comments on the above are
welcome.
All?s good?well kinda good on board Quasar V,
give or take a muscle or two!
Position: 20.25 S 00.50E @ 12.00 UTC 12.1.09