Rafiki - The budding shipwright

Andy writes:

We woke to a dark and cloudy sky which remained throughout the day.
The sea was calm or moderate and we continued on our downwind course
under two headsails. It had been suggested to Cally that the use of
the staysail, winched hard into the centre of the boat, would counter
the roll sometimes experienced when goosewinged. We tried a variety of
set-ups, but the jury is still out on whether it did make a real
difference to the roll of the boat.

James however was oblivious to these activities. He had set his mind
to making a boat out of a margarine tub, bamboo skewers, and paper. He
determinedly
concentrated on the production of said boat, and as you can imagine we
had improvement after improvement to the set-up. He ended up with a
magnificent craft
with a solid keel and roller reefing foresail.

Now who does he take after ? I do remain concerned, however, about my
other crewmate. Not only did he take the toilet door off whilst naked,
but he now insists on sitting on the loo with his life jacket on. He
can also be heard muttering after every meal that "you could live on
this", and often recounts to the crew that "on his last Atlantic
crossing....". I think he is enjoying himself!

We had the lure out to catch fish, and yet again we were scuppered. We
saw a big splash at the end of the lure and thought we had caught a
fish. We reeled in the
line to discover that the wire of the lure had been broken. It would
have been a mighty big fish!

Rob and Cally were on watch in the evening when we were caught in some
very bad weather. We had seen lightening around us for a number of
hours and had
worked hard to avoid it. Despite this we found ourselves in the pitch
dark and in heavy rain, with strong winds from a squall and lightening
close by.

Challenging sailing, but it soon passed. We did remember to take the
essential electronic equipment out of the oven this morning, the oven
alternatively known as the emergency Faraday Cage.

MENU

Breakfast
Homemade pancakes with a choice of toppings. [Honey and lemon, lemon
and sugar, Syrup or Nutella]

Lunch
Fresh baked bread
Homemade lentil and crispy bacon soup
Homemade Banoffee Ice cream

Supper
Homemade lasagne

Not bad, but you can live on it !!