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Webster - One Hunderd and Eight-teeee



Sunday 25th May 2014 Position 37 37'N 32 59'W DTD 213nm

Last night we ran the whole night under spinnaker which was fully powered up throughout in 15 knots of SE/S breeze, and we thought we may need to spend most of the night hand steering but the self steering came up trumps mainly because the waves were fairly benign. The boat just wanted to go and was returning speeds of 8-9 knots very comfortably. It was a beautiful clear night albeit someone has made off with the moon during the past few nights. Where does it go when you need it most? Come daylight we were flying and hit a high of 10.7 knots but it's a shame the sun took so long to appear from behind clouds as this would have been spectacular sailing in the sunshine. We were hand steering at this time as she was becoming over powered in the gusts and was trying to broach. We all were vying to steer as it was the best sailing to be had, all except Neal that is who has Spinnaker Phobia, due to some unfortunate incident as a child no doubt when he couldn't get it up? As far as he is concerned a spinnaker belongs nicely packed in the bag with a lovely bow around it and only to be be bought out when he is not on board, especially if he is called upon to steer! Perish the thought.

The up shot of it all was that we hit the boats magic number, one-hundred-and-eighty for the third day on the trot. We have been watching the miles dial down on the hand held GPS; it is amazing how quickly they go when you are nearing your destination just like the ground rush effect you get when parachute jumping where you float downwards serenely for ages and the last 50 feet come at you with attitude! Like landing with a parachute its only the very last bit that hurts and we have to remember we have no chart plotter to guide us in, only the pilot book and chart - just like the good old days, and its a bit rocky so need to take more care. The Treacle Miners have every electronic aid you can buy on their own boat so sailing without a chart plotter must seem positively stone-age to them, and possibly dangerous even! Needless to say Igor has an electronic gadget with the Azores charts installed but it may not work, as it hasn't so far, its a bit like my Raymarine in that respect.

As it was Sunday we had saved the last bit of stewing steak for Sunday dinner which I made into a steak and onion stew with potatoes, carrots and Yorkshire pudding. The trouble with Yorkshire pudding is that it really needs flour and all I could muster was some bread mix and an egg. Unperturbed by this slight shortcoming Yorkshire pudding was placed into the oven but what came out was definitely not Yorkshire pudding!! Something very weird and wonderful had happened to it and, well, its difficult to describe really. Anyway, whatever it was refused to come out of the tin which is itself possibly a write off. It needs a little work before Masterchef and Greg Wallace's critical eye perhaps.

We head into the evening now under boomed out jib and full main in 10 knots SW, so we are fairly deep downwind, not the fastest wind angle and so the last 150nm or so will take a little longer than it seemed earlier in the day but everyone has a smile on their face, particularly Neal now we have taken the spinnaker down and he has filled up the fridge, now devoid of food, with beer!

Roll on Horta!

Hi Ho!

Charlie
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