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Selene - Saturday 1st December



It seems incredible that December is here already - I will have to go back to work soon

More milestones today, apart from the date. 1000 miles will be up today and our distance run in the last 24 hours was again over 180 miles, so just 3 Fastnets to go now. We seem to be reasonably close to the other boats, which is encouraging as we are the second slowest boat in the fleet on handicap. We had a close encounter with our very good friends Jason and Judy Payne James on Heartbeat 4 last night. They appeared from behind and to weather of us, sailing higher and slightly faster than us and passed about half a mile ahead. They called up and spoke to Lily on the VHF. I was sleeping and didn't realise until I got on deck for my watch, but we kept them in view right through the watch and I was able to speak to Trevor when my watch finished. It seems to be going well there so far. They have broken a halyard but otherwise are in food spirits. I imagine they will be a little disappointed not to be further ahead of us, but it is a long race and still many miles to go. They are a much fatser boat and should be at least100 mils ahead of us at this stage. It was odd two boats from the same club on the East Coast racing along in the middle of the Atlantic and having a good chat on the VHF in the middle of the night.

Last night was very uncomfortable. The wind has been constantly above 25 Kts for days now and the sea is rather disturbed. Sailing lower is more direct (ie shorter route) and seems faster for us than a hotter route as chosen by HB4. It was very rock n roll though and it was a tough job staying in your bunk let alone trying to sleep.

Today the wind is higher if anything, and we are regularly seeing 30 Kts on the wind speed indicaatlor. It has been a rather grey morning so far but the breeze is still warm. Tee shirts and shorts even at night, but a light spray jacket is nice to keep the wind and occasional spray off. We had a huge squall last night just before my watch finished. The sky went very black and the full moon vanished. The wind whipped up to 38 Kts and it poured with rain with a furious intensity. Luckily we had been alert to the weather developing and had furled in the genoa so were able to ride the squall out very satisfactorily. It was all ver in less than 5 minutes and we rolled out the genoa again and off on our way. I shall take some shower gel and shampoo on deck for the next squall.

How does the time pass? Very quickly seems to be the answer. Last night I had the 9-11pm and 3-5am watches. Slept fitfully between and then another two hours till 7am (boat time - 9am UK time). Then up, cleaned up 2 Kg of basmati rice from the floor of the aft cabin where it had jumped out of a locker in the night. Engine on to charge batteries for 3 hours and to make water at the same time. Washed up and cleaned up the galley with Kevin then tidied myself and the heads before cooking breakfast of sausages and beans for the crew with orange juice and coffee, just in time to go back on watch for my 2 hour stint helming.

The helming is fun and physically and mentally demanding, but again the watches pass very quickly, especially if you have a good playlist.

It is now midday boat time and I am writing this blog- not easy as we are bouncing around a bit, then lunch and I shall probably watch an episode of Homeland before going back on watch from 3-5pm again. Kevin's turn for lunch today - we are using up last night's rice with some salad and peppers/olives etc. Probably try a bit more jamon. No bread today due to the rough conditions - I am hoping normal service will be resumed shortly.

I will be tired after the next watch so hopefully supper before it gets dark and then a couple of hours sleep or read a little before my next watch, then the same again tomorrow. The routine is manageable, but it is sometimes tough to get out of bed, but once on deck and behind the wheel yiou are alive and very much alert to the needs of the boat and the sail trim to try to encourage as much speed as possible whilst preserving the boat and the crew. Still only had the kite up for an hour so far - this is turning into another RBI Race.

Bob will download another weather grib this afternoon so we can see whether our course remains good and whether we need to duck south to miss a hole in the wind which appeared to be developing on Monday according to then last grib,

Excitement today - apart from chatting to HB4 was the siting of my first flying fish which launched just beside Selene and flew down the wind in a large trough, out of the main blast of the wind for several seconds alongside us as we raced down the face of the wave. We hear tales of flying fish getting caught out on deck in the night. I thought we had collected a dead one through the hatch in the aft cabin the other day. I was always taught that there are two things that smell of fish, and one of them is fish. I can confirm that there are actually 3 things as I discovered the rather nasty odour to be emanating from my deck shoes. I think they may be beyond wet wipes.


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