can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

Shalan - Day 3



24:01N 21:11W

Good Evening all!

It's 4:30am here at time of writing on Wednesday morning.

Last night (Monday night) we had a lovely peaceful nights sleep. 5 knots
of wind and we carried on through the night managing a speed of about 3
to 4 knots. It was flat calm and we had a very civilised dinner up top
with a cold beer. Since leaving we have only used the engine for 30
minutes so thats really good. Our hairbrain idea of buying a projector
to watch a film on the main sail could have been done last night, but
sadly I ruled that expediture out in Las Palmas along with the harpoon.
Due to my regret in ruling it out I now have a new nickname....Captain
Hindsight!

The wind picked up this morning and we were stonking along with a
dolphin escort for around 20 mins at 09:30. The main and code 0 hurled
us along at about 10 knots for most of the day. We had to reef the main
on a couple of occasions when the wind got up to 22 knots but apart from
that it was great.

We had a few boats appear back on the AIS and enjoyed hunting them down
all day. One of which was Lillith. Last time we heard from them was when
they put a safety call out to say there was an object in the water and
announced the coordinates of which was about 10 miles behind us. Yet
somehow through the night they managed to leapfrog 20 miles
infront.....we're guessing the diesel afterburners must have been on!
Two other boats on the AIS in front were Fourth Dimension and Amoenitas.
We were hunting them down to as they were doing about 7-8 knots. We
overheard them on the VHF discussing how many engine hours they'd done
up to now. Can't remember who said what but one said they had logged 18
hours and I think the other said that they'd done more. So considering
our position we've done really well!

Tom shone in the kitchen today, serving up a lunch and dinner double
header (cured meat sandwich for lunch, chicken fajita for dinner)both of
which went down a treat!

Fish Update::: Still no fish, there's more in the med.

So we carried on into tonight chasing down the boats infront under main
and code 0 averaging 10 knots. There was a fair bit of northerly swell
which was bouncing us all over the place, so much so that Oli litterally
dropped into my bed aftr the boat was on it's side.....bloody queer! We
decided to gybe, head south and run with the swell. When we furled the
code 0 the jammer broke so we were all hands on deck trying to get it
down. Not sure what caused it to fail but the continuous line probably
went back into the jam and snapped when furled it in on the winch. We
thought we'd better check the furler to see if that was ok, and upon
checking we noticed that the main shackle pin on the tack had come
completely undone and was hanging on by millimetres. Had that gone we
could have had the whole code 0 broke away with no tack which would have
been a nightmare. So it was a blessing in disguise! The pin is bent on
the shackle and we'll have to take a look in the morning to see if we've
got any spares or if we can fix it. In the meantime we're now running
under main and genoa and still achieving 10 knots with the swell right
behind us, a lot more comfortable!!

That's it for now and we'll update you again later on today hopefully.

Andy

P.s. We love getting your email onboard, however please remember the
following rules: keep it to text, no pics, no signatures, no
attachments, no emoticons and if replying to an email please do not
include the previous email chain.

Pic of the day us is us two idiots writing this at 4:30am!


m_IMG_0677

Previous | Next