Position 22.00.925N 021.02.819W
The dolphins returned in force yesterday
afternoon and entertained us for a while with a couple of trainees who had not
quite yet learned the full flip so came crashing down mid jump once or twice.
2 other boats in the ARC+ fleet – “Distant
Shores 2” a 14.9m Southerly 49 flying the Canadian flag, owned/skippered by
Sheryl Shard and “Shelena” a 16.45m
Oyster 545 – Philip Scourfield - both called us on the radio for a chat
as they could see us on their AIS. It was good to hook up with them and pass
the time of day.
We can usually see some other boats
navigation lights and we saw some periodically last night. After the dusty
clouds during the day there was a very clear sky overnight again.
Those of you watching our course may have
seen some roundabout detours. Our gennaker broke free the previous day and
caused us to make some course changes to bring it back aboard.
Last evening our main starboard lazyjack
uphaul line broke where it goes through the spreader. We check the rigging every day with binoculars
and had spotted prior to arrival into Las Palmas that the port side was frayed
and got to it just in time. We re-rigged it properly with a pulley rather than
it just running through a hole in the spreader and looked at the starboard side
at the same time but that looked OK. The
line broke suddenly and the sail bag side with the line flopped over the side
of the boom.
The main sail was attempted to be dropped
as the only way up the mast is in a bosuns chair using the main sail uphaul to
effect a repair. The lazyjack lines hold up the sail bag either side so when
the sail is dropped it sits inside the bag.
With one side broken it proved impossible to get the sail down safely.
There were various changes to our course heading into the wind to attempt to
drop the sail.
This morning saw a further successful attempt
with various additional lines brought into play to strap the sail in and then a
trip up the mast to repair the broken line. This was a difficult exercise in
quite big seas and took 2 attempts with a lot of swinging about. Donald has a
few cuts a bruises to confirm the job was completed. The whole team was hands on doing various jobs to help the repairs.
Overnight the wind was not helpful and
whilst it blew at around 20kts it was mostly in the wrong direction meaning
long periods of sailing away from our bearing.
We now have 382nm to go to Mindelo having
completed 555nm. We did 179nm in the last 24 hrs - slightly less than previous periods - explained by the forced stops and detours to deal with the breakages we have
had. We still averaged 7.5kts under sailpower other than when using the engines to
assist with our problems.
Questions hanging in the air on board at
the moment:-
- What flavour soup will we have for lunch
tomorrow?
- Whose new shorts are best – Donalds or
Glens ?
- Were we really entertained by a Drag Queen
in Las Palmas or was it some sort of delirium after a period at sea?
- What entertainment awaits us in Mindelo!?!
Everyone is fine on board and enjoying the trip.
** Happy Birthday- Lots of Love - Many Happy Returns to Autumn Pollard **