DTT 205nm
Lunch Ham, Chorizo, Mushroom and Onion Tartiflette
Dinner Roasted Chicken Herb Provence with Mushroom and waterchesnut Noodles
Well it was as if my daily log yesterday was a premonition!
Shake - So we furled away the genoas and put up the Spinnaker. As the spinnaker filled at the top of a wave Northern Child accelerated like a dinghy - quite an amazing feeling in this 20 tonne yacht. I helmed for an hour and NC was on fire, surfing down waves and hitting speeds up to 17 knots again quite regularly. It's when she is going fast that she comes to life, responsive on the helm and just a joy to sail. At about 1030, an hour after the spinnaker went up, there was a 'BOOM' and the spinnaker was no more. It blew out on the Port side at the head and ripped all the way down the luff. I called Tim up to give a hand and with A watch, they gradually pulled the kite back on board. This was more of a setback from the perspective of losing boatspeed than breaking the kite. When a sail goes through natural causes, it is like an 95yr old man passing quietly in his sleep, sad but time. He does leave a whole in many peoples lives, but he will be remembered. RIP Fyfes Blue and Yellow Spi.
Rattle - We dropped both the genoas and then rehoisted and poled out the smaller no4 genoa. Tactical sailmaker team T&T (Tim and Tom) went back to their repair work on the no2 - "doing the kind of repair work the sailmakre in Las Palmas could only dream of" - yes, alright Uncle Albert! It took them about 4 hrs which obviously slowed us during that time without the no2 up, but never the less, NC kept ploughing om and making good miles towards St Lucia. At about 1530, we dropped the no4, attached the no2 and rehoisted both sails. A very physical job with the crew all putting in 100% effort to make this happen. Double headsails up, no2 poled out and again, NC was acclerating away down the Atlantic waves - reeling in more precious miles on the yachts ahead.
Whilst T&T were doing sail repairs, I was making lunch and rotating stores and checking stock levels. We provision NC each year with food and water for 20 days, so we have still got plenty of food left. We also have quite a bit of alcohol left which a few of the crew have noticed and are increasingly putting pressure on to 'finish up' at happy hour. I have stuck to my guns on our 1 happy hour drink policy which was not the most popular decision but definitely the right one. For dinner I cooked chicken thighs in a large tray with butter, garlic and herbs provence. Initially on the gas hob to seal and brown the skin, then in the oven to finish. Quite sumptuous and well received by the crew.
Role - As we have changed the clock 3 times now, we are GMT-3 and it gets dark at about 1830. So the night watch at 2200 is pitch black again until the stars come out later in the night. At approximately 2330 I felt a Role and found myself lying against the side of the starboard bulkhead - the wrong side to be on starboard gybe, so darted up on deck to find us in our 3rd and hopefully final chinese gybe of the trip. I took the wheel, regained control and proclaimed "Good morning - King pawn cuwee, flied lice anyone?" A bit of laughter always calms the nerves! I then continued to steer to the end of the watch but noticed that the pole uphaul had snappde in the process, so the only thing holding the pole up was the clew of the sail. Not happy to leave it this way through the night, I got Tim up to take the helm and rigged a temporary solution. I took the lazy genoa sheet which was not being used but connected to the clew of the genoa at the end of the pole and tied it to the spare topping lift. Once tensioned, this had the same effect as the pole uphaul and stabalised the pole well. At 0299, I'd had enough fun for one night, so retired to my bunk to read my book while watch B with Tim took over.
Crew Profile: Deitmar Hanke
I"m one of the residents of the 'German Embassy"'(50% share of the starboard cabin). Me and my mate Eckard try to combine a real adventure trip with an off shore meeting point for German sailors! In the next few years it's my plan to open a another 'German Embassy' together with my wife Katja in the ARC 2014/2015 on our own yacht. It was a good decision to book a cabin on "Northern Child" because I had a good opportunity to learn terms in English language that my teachers in Germany would never teach me..... By the way the cooking of our skipper is more than excellent and the crew (mainly British) are all great. Notice: Embassy will be open until we'll have arrived in St Lucia this night.
By lunchtime today we have just 110nm to go. Our ETA is still sometime late tonight or early tomorrow, so the bet for crossing time is still a dead heat between Deb and Adolfo at the moment. It will ultimately come down to the time it takes to get the pole down and manouvre the last 5 miles around the Northern tip of St Lucia and into the finish line at Rodney Bay. I genuinely can sense the closeness of land now am imagining that lovely steak but much more importantly seeing my Lucy :-)