Escapado - Duck duck duck goose(life on wing on wing sailing)

Duck duck duck goose(life on wing on wing sailing)

As the winds have built and proceeded to stay high, We proceeding to make way with goose-wing, with the jib coming out on the opposite side to the mainsail. This gives us great downwind speed in almost all conditions, Unfortunately this makes the boat a little rolly with waves coming from all sides and the “mother” of the day who makes the meals regularly invents new words to describe the person helming.

Yesterday the conditions were tough at night, with confused seas, zero moon and winds changing from 14 to 30 knots. This causes a number of unfortunately coffee incidents. I put my hand in someone’s coffee cup in the galley, proceeding to fling its around the sink and owner. Then, the instant coffee decided enough was enough, came out from the top cupboard and ended up at the bottoms of the navigation station.

Finally to top off the night after completing a slightly hectic gybe, I sat back behind the helm to take a breather and to sip my coffee. Suddenly - BAM. A flying fish about 18 inches long had flew into my jaw and found itself at the well of the steering wheel. All I could taste for the next 24 hours was fish…

Today we celebrated halfway - more to come from Angela tomorrow. We had the symmetric spinnaker up in the morning and afternoon, pushing it in the breezes as well as surfing down the waves I then middle of the Atlantic. Wind speeds touched 24 knots in the gusts. Unfortunately I was helming as a wave came and span us into a broach (heading up into wind uncontrollably). A line was released too far by an eager crew and ended up filling up the spinnaker kite in a place it shouldn’t have been, causing us to heel over impressively.

Angela climbed up the heeled over vessel like the superwoman she is and with the help of on board poet Harry, winched in errant line in a Herculean effort. Escapado took off again and we headed downwind into the sunset with the kite still up and in one piece. The on watch were humbled and slightly damper than before and the below watch knowing what a washing machine fills like.

Onwards we go to St Lucia! Sam - first mate