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Webster - Spiderman no match for a Webster!



Monday 26th May 2014. Position : horizontal after only two tinnies

Corrected finish place: Third overall.


13 days 13 hours 40 minutes, that's how long it took us to arrive safely in Horta. 0140 to be precise local time. Seems like two weeks to me but we are here!!

The last day at sea was quite eventful despite the fact that the wind had gone a bit lighter. The Blue Peter Badge this time goes to Neal who spotted what on the horizon seemed like a dark conical cloud appearing sporadically between white cumulus. The island of Pico can indeed be spied from miles off as it reaches some 2350 metres and although not obvious, he was right and a loud "Land Ahoy" was bellowed with about 50 miles or so to go. The island of Faial is right next to Pico so we knew we were on track much to the surprise of the Treacle Miners to whom paper charts and a compass are history, and with no electronic chart plotter considered until now that we were at the very best dead reckoning, lost.

We were having a ding dong with Defyr of Class B, a standard Bavaria 42 who was way ahead of her closest rival in class and on alternate days appeared on the daily position reports as being just ahead or just behind ourselves. We are supposed to be a quicker boat than 'Deaf Ear' but clearly they were sailing the boat extremely well, I dare say slightly better than ourselves albeit we were flat out. For some days we had been exchanging emails after the 1200 posting of the position reports and Spiderman (long story referred to in an earlier blog) was either in despair or ecstatic depending on our relative positions - the race was on!!

Having Pico in sight in fairly flat seas with spinnaker up all was right in our little world. Then suddenly, Whoosh!! A bloody great whale surfaced some 50 metres to port going on a parallel course and same speed as us and obviously wanted a look. It was by some large extent bigger than our boat yet the guys were leaping about grabbing cameras and shouting as it gracefully came to the surface, blew out and dipped below again. This was a fin whale and a big one. Me, I grabbed the life jackets and untied the life raft ready to deploy at short notice; these things are lovely to look at and people pay lots of money to get this close and personal with the things but if they do take a particular interest in you the slightest unintentional flick of a tail can take the rudder off in no time.....Then another six or so appeared in line astern!! Engine on, music turned up, they are going to hear us as well as see us! I hope they don't like the Rolling Stones or we are in trouble! Then the last one decided to cut across our stern, more than likely a Mick Jagger fan, and passed some 20 metres behind, too close for comfort but having a red bottom we could not possibly be mistaken for a fellow whale, surely? No, thankfully it went on its way no doubt humming "I can't get no satisfaction".

Some 40nm out at about 1800 we had a Swedish boat come over the radio on 16 - we could see a mast some way off to port and ahead, we thought it was Deaf Ears but thankfully it wasn't. Then Easy Rider came on too and she was indeed in contact with Spiderman and relayed a message to her confirming the race was on to the line, and no engines and beer at stake. We plotted her position which put her some little distance off our port stern quarter and in the evening light saw both boats, Deaf Ears with spinnaker up. We immediately started to trim the kite for speed and as we went into the evening and into the night we were trimming constantly. With beer involved we would show no mercy.

Nearing the island we got a bit confused with the lights from the land but eventually identified just where we were and, after negotiating the 20 knots or so wind effect from the land, dropped the spinnaker in good time for the wind then to shut off completely. We were some half mile short of the harbour with us comfortably ahead but drifting away from the finish line. This was just too much and after and hour and much mumbling emanating from certain crew members who were by this time sitting on the leeward rail to heel the boat over at gone one in the morning, I had to admit defeat and put the engine on to get over the line at 0140 in flat calm. We motored in, rafted up next to Easy Rider on the Customs dock, made a little more difficult as the bow thruster wouldn't work, cracked a couple of beers and congratulated ourselves on a job well done.

We had had some head winds, high winds, tail winds, big seas, flat seas, whales, dolphins, turtles, leaks, wet bunks (jury still out on the cause but we still think it is incontinence), sun, rain, you name it we had it. We reckon we did about 1950 miles, over 100 miles extra south to avoid the storm that took out Cheeki Rafiki but had headed back to the initial rhumb line and stuck to it like glue.

We are in and HAPPY!!!

HI Hooooooo.........

Good night...zzzzzzzzz.


Charlie


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