Jack Rowland Smith - Log Day 14 - JACK Rowland Smith -Squalls and All

A more subdued log this morning as we have had a difficult weather night on JACK requiring constant vigilance and sail adjustment which equates to no sleep.

The ARC 24 hour run report for midday yesterday came in at an average of 7.3 knots for JACK which we were pleased with. It maintained our overall average and showed us having a higher average speed over the last 24 hours than the other boats we follow who are all north of us. It is the first time we have really seen any visible evidence that south pays for wind but better late than never. This morning we have 550 miles to run.

So to yesterday and we are definitely getting closer to land because we have spotted sea birds. Not many at this point and we have no idea what type, but birds they certainly are. We had a couple of parrotty looking things (I am no bird wizard) flying around the boat for a while, they looked like they wanted to land for a rest. However exhausted their wings were, they clearly would prefer to carry on rather than land on a boat with a “strange looking bloke” (guess who!!) wandering around the deck shouting “here birdie birdie” with his binoculars around his neck. Hardly the behaviour of your every day bird watcher and clearly of little interest to passing birds, however knackered they may be. We definitely are seeing a trend in this kind of behaviour from our skipper, goodness knows what is going to be like when he sees civilisation for the first time. I think a red alert behavioural warning may be warranted for the Rodney Bay Area in four days........

Chef Sue decided that after two weeks at sea she needed to go for a walk. Well we are on a 50 foot boat in the middle of the Atlantic but not to be deterred, off she went around the boat. To be honest, it was more an obstacle course than a walk with all the extra bits of string we have lying around to deal with poled out jibs, bent boom and various other fraying lines. Three circuits were completed but it was hardly a route march, more an erratic flounder but still better than the rest of us.

Conversations are getting a bit more deep, verging on the bizarre, the longer we run. Navigation, weather and sail trim are always topics but once they are exhausted, what to talk about? “..why would you design earth with oceans and then rely on gravity to keep them in place, seems a very poor design and extremely fragile to me” said Skip to me. A pregnant pause followed by an “I don’t know” from me which seemed the safest response for fear of being pulled into a debate that involved various forms of calculus and physics. I was however quietly thinking “but surely no oceans then no sailing:-)”.

We have finished our fresh veg now but fresh meat is still lasting so Ribeye steak last night and fresh bread again this morning. We will be well fed by the time we get to St Lucia. No alcohol on the trip so far but I can see resolve (well mine anyway) weakening the longer we go and the closer we get.

And now to the main event, the crossing. The wind yesterday and overnight has been very light but we managed to maintain some of our speed by pointing the boat closer to the wind and therefore creating apparent wind. We can afford to do this because we are a reasonable way south of the fleet and actually on the same latitude as St Lucia. We give some hard work back but such is life in this game.

We got through to midnight doing fine but at around 1.00am we ran into some very unstable weather which made the chart plotter resemble a space invader video game rather than the horizon in mid Atlantic. This was our first real experience on the trip of significant unstable conditions with significant squall activity. Little storm cells seemed to generate themselves quickly but then break up equally quickly, it was pitch black so we had no real idea what we were dealing with. We commenced a squall dodgem run, being careful to keep the boat sailing safe as the wind picked up or dropped for no rhyme nor reason as far as we could see, which of course was not a lot. In fact at one point our angles to the wind did not change and yet our course went from 250 degrees to 320 degrees. The storm cells finally went south at about 4.00am but left us with no wind, sails were slapping around and we were really not moving. We were however left with a sky full of stars which was beautiful but an exhausted crew decided they had had enough and rather than ruin the sails we pulled them down and turned on the engine for the first time in two weeks. Obviously motoring hours have to be disclosed but we want to get the boat safely to the other side so we ran under engine for a couple of hours until first light and we could once again see what we were doing.

If anyone looks at our track between 4.00am and 12.00 today you might be forgiven for thinking that the skipper and I had our “no alcohol resolve” broken at 4.00am, it is not straight and it is not fast........!!!

Our run time today will not be anywhere near what we have seen in recent days because winds are once again light and that will put pressure on our arrival time, albeit the weather forecast for tomorrow and possibly Tuesday looks like it will be to our liking. We still remain hopeful for Thursday arrival and hope to goodness that those who have already arrived (really well done to them) do not drink all the rum!!!

Nick (I am fed up with foredeck duty)