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Ntanda - Blog day 4 - South then!



So it's day 4 on Ntanda, or is it day 5? (that sounds familiar....) I guess officially it's day 5 as we started on Sunday, but it feels like day 4 and as far as clean T shirts go its definately day 4.
It's been a somewhat wild ride so far, squalls a plenty and a sail plan alternating between 2 sail reaching, poled out headsail and occasional dabble with the kite. We've had a couple of wild broaches and some serious 'rock n role' - never a good thing when you've got 2000+ NM to go.
It all got a bit serious yesterday when we discovered rather large amounts of water in the bilges. We had been raising eyebrows at each other for some time over the amount of wet pumps we did every watch change and this came to a head when a bilge check showed us awash. So kite down and the next four hours lifting all the boards, checking sea cocks and keel bolts (gulp) until we discovered the cause of the leak.  The cockpit drains into 2 pipes that run under the cockpit sole and one of these had come adrift. still nothing a couple of soft wood bungs and a tea towel couldnt fix.
I now find I may be in trouble with Mrs Daly as the rather fetching stripey tea towel I butcherd was in fact a family airloom. Well come on...Jewellery, houses, castles even but a tea towel? How was I to know! I think I'm innocent.
Well as you can imagine everyone was knackered so no kite last night (we have only 3 drivers at the moment; it's a work in progress and we just havent had the weather) but up it went this morning and we are STONKING!
Speed trials so far has Mr D senior on 14.9kts under kite and Mr D junior on 14.1kts, and the competition is fierce! I'll let them have some fun then take the wheel and show them how its done!
We're into the melted butter now and starting our looong hike west, hoping of course that our decision to go south will pay off against our more 'adventurous' adversaries who are rhumb lining it further north.
Thats about it for today, sleep time now so TTFN
Tackleberry.


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