Another day of drifting. Its been a long, hot slow
day. Our speed has been at 0.0 knots with no steerage numerous times and speeds
of 2 knots have been among the highlights of the day. That said we have been
slowly chipping away at the miles and reducing the distance to the finish.
Rankings wise we are holding position.The wind hole we are in spans several
hundred miles so most of the race boats are now in it or soon will be. 2 boats
have finished and unless something suddenly changes wind wise for the rest of us
they will secure 1st and 2nd place. Well done to "Scarlet Oyster" and "Optimax".
While we have managed to pull a few miles further ahead of "Milanto" on the
water we are still behind her on rating, we need to beat her by about 11 hrs 45
mins for 3rd place. Like us she is stuck in no wind and will probably catch wind
about the same time as us, making ii quite hard for us to take her by half a
day. Meanwhile some of the boats behind have caught up a bit before they too
sailed into the hole.
We are expecting a little breeze from the North in
the morning and sadly have a night of drifting and the main flapping from side
to side ahead of us. Quite a few yachts from the cruising fleet have motored
past us now, and I am guessing that nearly 50 of them will have
finished.
On board spirits are high,everyone is very relaxed
and has taken the opportunity to play games, sleep and so on. With 70 mils to go
we are hoping this will be our last night at sea, that said we are assuming
nothing at the moment. Now that we are fairly close to the finish we have
released some of the fresh water from rationing and each enjoyed a fresh shower
on the stern. We have enough tank water to do the same again tomorrow and the
next day and still not run short of drinking water.
I forgot to mention in the blog a couple of days
ago that Ilya has completed the RYA SRC (VHF Radio) course on board, scoring
pretty high in the exam at the end. Although a slightly unorthodox
training environment, we covered the whole course. Despite having taught several
thousand SRC students over the last decade this is a first for Stormforce
Coaching. I wonder if this is an ARC first! Maybe he is even the first
person ever to pass the RYA SRC course while on a ocean yacht race.
The light winds and still yacht have allowed
the Ocean Yachtmaster candidates to take some really good sun sights, Ksenia has
also joined in and despite having and previous navigation training at any
level has calculated our position by the sun within a few miles, putting to
shame many of the professional skippers I have come across and examined over the
years. Her afternoon position line today by the sun was confirmed as going
exactly through our actual position by GPS.
Assuming the wind eventually kicks back in as
forecast then we will finish at some point late tommorrow, if not we will blog
again while drifting somwhere near St Lucia.
DOUG INNES
Skipper Cheeki Rafiki / Stormforce
Coaching