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Calash - Day 10 – Tuesday 30 November 2021



Alan was relieved to be relieved by Colin and a now revitalised Callum. Their watch was squall central, with a record breaking ‘squall call’ at 38 knots.  Usual rock and roll for the sleeping beauties down below.  I was quite happy to exit my pit of despair for the 0400 hrs watch with Jamie.  Again it was quite pleasant in the cockpit with a starry night to keep us company.

We decided a tense, highly competitive game of chess would pass the time.  It did; 3 hours later Jamie emerged the winner of a strategy filled attack and defence encounter.  Part of the reason it took so long was that we were most inconveniently interrupted by some boat people wanting to do a turny thing.  It was an operation very similar to Callum’s hair cut; reasonably slick, lacked some style, but turned out ok in the end!  We’re now pointing westwards, heading towards the Windward Islands.

The squalls continued to come through, some lighter, some heavier.  They warranted some attention, but luckily Colin “Captain Pugwash” Crosby was on hand to take command. It may look like he has had lessons from King Knut, but that’s just a misspelling!  This squalling was so impressive, we called it ‘Timothy’. After 9 days at sea, I think I may be losing it!!

24 hour progress – 180 nm – cumulative 1346 nm

The afternoon was more of the same.  Good progress, averaging around 7 knots, with some surfing peaks and troughs over the waves.  Top speed according to the Garmin has been 16 knots!  We had a couple of episodes of mainsail re-jig with batons getting caught around the shrouds, but the ‘A’ Team soon sorted the issues with a combination of rope manipulation and controlled crash gybing.

Supper was a revitalised sausage stew, magically turned into a sausage hot pot by the addition of some lentils and a few hotter spices.

It was shift change again, with Jamie & I on first watch.  We were in for a bit of a squall-fest.  There was a series of squalls rolling in, making for a rather squallicious time.  Several squallified high for squallity of wind speed and duration of blow – scored on the Squallometer.  We had a new record for the squall-call of 41.7 knots – this beauty was labelled the ‘Squallinator’.

Clive the cabin boy standing by…


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