00.00hrs Overall distance from Cape Town to St. Helena ..................................1,714 miles
Distance traveled ............................................................................1,114 miles
Distance to destination ........................................................................600 miles
It was a very, very windy night, with winds blowing up to 36 knots, we were well reefed down and had an exciting sail , to say the least. The sea state was rough , with breaking waves everywhere. But, not a bother to A Lady.
Later, about 08.00hrs, we started the generator and voilá, it worked perfectly, the lack of fresh or sweet water in the manifold was the problem last night when it shut itself down suddenly. While we were at the generator, we cleaned the water filters too, and they were full of weeds and barnacles, so we used concentrated vinegar to kill the living barnacles. Great stuff!
09.00hrs, Radio Call. We are just about holding our own on the fleet, however, Wild Tigris took more miles out of us. Tomorrow will tell a lot...
Midday, we covered 208 miles in the last 24 hours, we were delighted with that again, even with a foul tide against us, shortly after, we got out the blue spinnaker (as Terry christened it, "The Bag of Fear") and hoisted it aloft, this added a knot to our speed and also makes the boat much more stable. It took us 35 minutes to hoist it, and the deck looked like speggty junction, blooming ropes and strings everywhere, but we managed it all.
We had a beautiful sail, the weather cleared up and we had a very sunny and warm day, with relatively flat seas.
We had a roast chicken, roast potatoes and Asian salad for the fresh stuff. All very tasty. No drink.
We had a beautiful sunset as we crossed the 00.00 GMT longitude (nowadays called UTC) so were are now officially in the West, and our time is the same as that in Ireland & England...
We decided to keep the kite flying for the night, as it was such a pleasant night. Our much loved starry silent orchestra playing up there in the sky for us.
We all spent the night coming and going, so the official night watches went by the board.
Our favorite rugby team, "MUNSTER" is playing today in a do or die match for them. Come on guys, up Munster!
That's it for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)