Saturday, 15th January 2011
00.01hrs Our distance to Destination is (St. Helena) .....................................................463 miles
We had 2 reefs in the mainsail and the bag of fear flying, the wind was SSE 18/20 knots
The seas were flat and weather good.
07.00hrs The wind increased to about 28/29 knots, Skipper got Sham out of the Scratcher (bunk) and we took down the spinnaker, and it was a tough job, we were perspiring so much when finished, one could squeeze us dry. But, but, "Murphys Law" came into the picture, and 10 minutes later, the wind dropped away down to 12 knots... ahhhhhh, after all our trouble, damn "Murphys law" we will have to take out a contract on Murphy to have it assassinated.
We were whacked, a coffee and a nap to recharge the batteries, that's the human batteries.
09.00hrs Radio Call. We gained ground again on the fleet and reduced Wild Tigris lead from 48 miles to 13 miles. That really pleased us, even though we really like everyone on that boat, and the skipper Sean is Irish. Well, the Independent republic of Donegal.
10.30hrs We decided to hoist the KITE. As we were getting the thing ready on the deck, the foot blew over the side and caused panic for about 3 minutes until we had it back on board. Shortly after, we had the KITE flying, nicely thanks very much..... Spinnakers in the water/sea is not good news. It brings back terrible memories of the spinnakers on the 1720 sports boat. Skipper tore at least 2 masts out of his 1720 over the years all because the kite got into the water and bang, wallop, bye, bye mast. Ohhhh the pain of it all, not to mention the cost and inconvenience.
THE SPINNAKER :- the 2 spinnakers we have on board are 1. the parasail or KITE as we call it, and the other is the blue spinnaker or "Bag of Fear" as Fr Terry named it. When putting them up or taking them down we use a "Sock" system. This "sock" is about 12" wide and made of strong light sail material, and is the length of the sail. When we hoist the spinnaker, it is inside the "sock", when it reaches the top of the mast, then we pull up the sock to the top and the spinnaker opens out nicely, taking it down, we just pull the sock back down over the sail and it snuffs the sail thereby making it easy to retrieve and put back into its bag on deck.
Midday, We spotted a sail on the horizon ahead of us. It has to be Wild Tigris and whats more 6/7 miles is about the limit of our vision, so that means we have taken a lot out of them...
We spent time relaxing and cleaning the floating ashtray, oppppps! we really mean the cockpit. But, but, we really like the smell of the pipe, well that's for now.
The day was just magic, beautiful flat blue water, and clear blue skies, what more do we want, Ohh, a Gin & tonic, and we did, gosh, it tasted fantastic!
06.00hrs Roll call, everyone had a good day and we got the position of Destiny..... we were worried that she may have gone well past us as she did not give her position for the last 2 days, but now she is 139 miles away from us..... and not out front.
Skipper did the dinner. His Hungarian sweet and sour goulash speciality, with creamed potatoes with a small bit of horse radish sauce mixed in to give it a little kick. it all tasted wonderful and not a scrap left over, were we hungry, or was it a good meal?
Yesterday, skipper got his dates all mixed up regarding the Munster match that is being played on Sunday....
Before we sign of, A BIG HELLO to Paul Hassett & Bill Walsh from all on A Lady, Skipper, Aileen, Sham and Emily.
That's it ,
Signed:- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )