Fair Encounter - Day 1 - The highs and Lows of our first day at sea

Our sailing is a bit like a complicated weather map, full of highs and lows, today has been no different, however I should begin by introducing ourselves. I am Joyce, First Mate, Head Chef and Assistant Navigator; John is Captain, Sous -Chef and Chief Navigator because he can do the maths to go with the sextant sights! I will probably write most of our logs during one of my night watches when the skipper doesn't need any food.

We had a good start, crossing the line with about half the fleet behind us, but we knew we would soon be overtaken by most of them because we are one of the smallest and slowest boats. We had started with just the genoa, expecting to set up the double headsail rig once the fleet spread out. Wrong wind, so we pulled up the mainsail. Still boats sped past us so we replaced the genoa with the cruising chute, a very colourful light wind sail. Success, we started overtaking boats! Then the next low arrived, the cruising chute sheet snagged on the edge of the solar panel and snapped. I went forward and pulled down the snuffer and we lowered it, back up went the genoa. The wind had been building and would have soon destroyed the chute anyway.

To get the best from the sails we poled out the genoa on one side and gybed the main, attaching a preventer to avoid a dangerous gybe where the mainsail and boom suddenly fly across the cockpit damaging anyone and anything in its way. We were sailing well and it was 6.00 p.m. Happy Hour! We had barely sat down with a G&T each when the whisker pole holding out the genoa folded in half, not good! We rolled away the genoa while John sorted out the pole and the ropes attached to it. We were sailing at over 5 knots on mainsail alone and it was getting dark so we have stayed with that sailplan for the night.

Dinner was a little late but tasty - chicken breast, stuffed with green pesto and wrapped in pancetta then baked (prepared and cooked yesterday) accompanied by mash and sautéed mushrooms and red peppers.

We started our watch system at 8.00, 3 hours on and 3 hours off and writing a log helps to fill the time so the next thrilling (?) episode should appear tomorrow!

Joyce
(sitting in the pitch black cockpit of Fair Encounter.)