Freedom - Blog 3 Tuesday 21st November 1500hrs GMT

Todays ed SPW

A bit of everything weather wise today. We are heading south of the rhumb line, to the west of the Cape Verde islands, almost parallel to the African coast, in search of those elusive trade winds.

I handed over watch to Ian at 2300 yesterday (Monday 20th) with about 15-20 knots on the quarter ie perfect sailing conditions. When I woke up we were motoring, the wind having dropped out at about 0300. The wind then gradually increased to the point we were overpowered by about 0900 and put in 2 reefs, which was increased to 3 due to some squalls. Some of the crew were surprised to find themselves wearing wet weather gear having been assured in the promotional material that it was shorts and T shirt weather the whole way. In fact we haven’t seen the sun all day today, it’s grey but the wind is warm.

It’s fair to say that, although the reefing and unreefing were conducted without incident, we did need a bit of practice and have gradually improved during the day. As with all sailing matters, though Chris is the leader Stuart is the brains. No decisions are taken without his input and he picks up many things others miss. We are fortunate to have such a trusty first mate on board.

I would like to bring your attention to a couple of areas where our hosts,the boat owners, are showing some of the reasons for their success. Ian managed the provisioning, catering for 4 or 5 crew for 3 weeks is quite a logistical exercise, especially with limited refrigeration. I say 4 OR 5 crew because Nigel assured us he would be following his own diet pre departure however has eaten everything put in front of him since leavIng. Other than that Nigel is a wonderful crew mate who keeps up morale with a never ending stream of anecdotes and good humour. He is a very good person to share a small cabin with, We have similar snoring patterns. Ian has also prepared 2 wonderful evening meals to date - mushroom stroganoff (including porcini mushrooms) and (appropriately) Moroccan chicken. We will be enjoying the chicken again tonight given the lumpy conditions and need to eat the chicken before it goes off. Ian's cooking will be a hard act to follow.

As well as skippering the boat Chris spends hours analysing the weather patterns. As mentioned in previous blogs, strategic interpretation of the weather can make days difference to the crossing time. Our current tactic of heading south is to avoid a large area of no wind on the direct course from the Canaries to the West Indies. The jury is out on the course we have taken but the process used to choose it is meticulous.

Ed’s note : We are doing 2 hour watches so 2h on 8h off with 5 crew. The rest of time is spent looking after the boat, making endless cups of tea, meal prep, discussing all matters including some related to sailing, squashing rubbish into empty water bottles and reading. Haven’t tried our luck with the fishing line yet. Will be the subject of a future blog.

Otherwise all on board is good.
Best wishes to all from Freedom.