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Starblazer - 15/05/2014 – Slow and wet



Wednesday was a very slow day, averaging less than 4.3 knots from midnight

to midnight. The cockpit finally dried out mid-afternoon and we could take

our wet weather trousers off. The wind wandered around causing us to head

further off course so at noon we tried our first sail change. We had been

making great progress with our twin headsails poled out either side but they

prevented us heading towards the waypoint when the wind veered (went

clockwise) from east to south east. We dropped the poles, gybed the port

hand genoa to starboard (now both headsails are the same side, one on top of

the other) and hoisted the mainsail. Initially this allowed us to sail on

port tack with the wind about 56o from astern, almost towards the waypoint.

The wind wandered about again and the mainsail kept blanketing the genoas

so, just before the evening ssb net, we set up one pole to starboard to hold

the genoas out. This is far from perfect as the sails aren’t quite the same

size which resulted in the sheet of the outer sail chafing through

overnight. This morning’s job was to replace the sheet and feed it through

another snatch block, the inner sail’s sheet is already led through a snatch

block at the end of the pole. I’m sorry if this is all a foreign language

to some but there is no really simple way of describing the problem without

writing reams of explanation.



We have just had a very brief squall pass us, actually we were very lucky as

the radar screen showed a line of 8 squalls heading northwest, line abreast.

We only got in the way of the edge of the smallest one! The wind has now

backed (moved anti-clockwise) from southeast to east northeast so I suspect

we will be changing the sail configuration yet again as we are now sailing a

bit too far south of our line.



Yesterday we successfully made about 120 litres of water, unfortunately some

of it ended up in the bilge courtesy of the split in the lower water tank.

At least the saloon bilge should get cleaner. Not a lot else happened

except that we appeared to go backwards in relation to the rest of the fleet

which is disappointing.



On the culinary front John jointed a chicken, which had been in a box in the

fridge defrosting. I then cooked three different meals, my collection of

foil trays comes in handy as I can fit three on the oven shelf at the same

time. For dinner we had chicken breasts roasted in a piri piri marinade

with roast potatoes, carrots and celery followed by an orange flavoured

concoction I bought in Panama. I make the powder up like a custard, using

less liquid than they specify and it sets quite nicely. The other two

chicken meals are the leg joints roasted with American Steakhouse seasoning

and the inner breasts, wings and odds and ends marinated in a Paella spice

mix, also roasted. At least I don’t have to think too hard about dinner

tonight!



Joyce



p.s. This blog is late again as the computer battery was flat and the

inverter will not charge it and run the computer at the same time. I used

the generator to charge the battery but the power socket is too far away to

put the computer on the nav table…….


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