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Starblazer - Starblazer 30 November Not what it says on the packet!



The title refers to the weather and sailing conditions. I do not expect any sympathy, after all I’m sure it is cold, wet and miserable at home and sailors would relish sailing in shirt sleeves at this time of the year in the Solent. It was warmer yesterday and remained tolerable overnight, a  fleece was quite adequate. Today was warm enough but with 100% cloud cover and frequent light showers. This evening it rained quite heavily for about 6 hours which has soaked the cockpit cushions!


The wind is another matter. According to the pilot charts, the prevailing winds in this area at this time of year are NE, a comfortable run in sailing terms. We have had several days of weak SE –S- SW winds meaning our
intended heading, SW until the butter melts, has been difficult to achieve. The wind in this direction makes it a beat which can be uncomfortable, after all ‘A gentleman never sails to windward’ allegedly! We have been very
surprised by the speed Starblazer can make in a 10 knot wind about 60 degrees off the bow. We only turn the engine on when our speed over the ground, i.e. with the help of any favourable current, drops below 2 knots. When under engine we point the boat in the direction we want to go. Currently the wind has backed from SW this morning through S to NNE so we are sailing close to due south with just a mainsail. The wind didn’t reappear until it was dark, not the time to be working on deck to put up the spinnaker pole to pole out the genoa.

Our course, as close to south as we can make it, is intended to get us as far away as possible from a potential gale from a low which is developing and could become a sub-tropical storm by Monday or Tuesday. Don’t worry
about us, we will be far out of harms’ way. We might even find the elusive trade winds by then. At noon today, Friday, our position on the chart was only 30 miles away from the noon position on the Thursday 4 years ago.
This is SLOW but we are all in the same boat, so to speak.

Rant over. We had one very worrying episode this afternoon. The wind died so John started the engine while I switched off the generator. Initially there was a clunk from the prop, a sticky blade, then there was a bang. John
shot below and was just about to open the door to the engine room when I spotted the cause. A bottle of homemade ginger beer had exploded, blowing the lid off the area of bilge I’d stored it in just in case! The bang was
the ‘lid’, a piece of floor about 12 inches by 5 inches by 5/8ths, landing.

Dinner tonight was chili and brown rice followed by pumpkin pie and cream. My new ‘favourite’ cookery book explained how to cook dried beans and brown rice in a vacuum flask, not together, minimising the use of gas. The beans had two 5 minute boils separated by 3-4 hours, the rice only had 5 minutes then 3 hours in the flask. This saves gas and frees up the hob. Excellent.

More tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be able to report some ‘champagne sailing’.
Joyce








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