Jack Rowland Smith - Log Day 6 - Home Schooling and Frustrations

Day 6 and we have sailed over 1,000 miles and we are now heading west, literally, which is not absolutely what we wanted at this time. But before that a general crew/boat update.

We have been operating on GMT but today we will breach 30 degrees west at which point we will move the ships clock back 1 hour (technically two but I am not having two hours added to my watch in one go!!!). Overall. a relatively quiet day outside of damage assessment and we are now in a reasonably effective pattern of watches.

We are technically a family ARC entrant as we have an under 16 year old on board and he is technically being “home schooled”!! Good luck with that one with me as his Dad....... So for those following Ben’s homeschooling, all appears to be going well in as much as Ben has the self discipline to teach himself which is a necessity in our family. He has revision and 20 GCSE mock exams to get done and he is already four mocks down so progressing well. The school stipulated exam conditions for the mocks so before each exam we tell Ben he cannot confer with anyone and he cannot read the text book. I am pleased to say the former is policed by being 2,000 miles from his school mates and we trust him on the latter point. To be honest, if he continues for the remaining two weeks as he has started, I suspect Ben will be in a better position than he would have been at home with access to the dreaded World Wide Web.

As you have seen in previous blogs, simulating exam conditions does require some unusual “toilet” breaks which include sail changes or, of course, fishing excitement. And so it was yesterday, John starting at the crack of dawn with his “this caught loads of tuna in the Med” lure going out, Ben deciding late in the day he could be bothered after all and drop his line out before disappearing off for mock PE paper 2. And yes you have guessed it, Mahi Mahi number 2 was caught by Ben mid paper. Unfortunately Mahi Mahi number 2 was the half brother of Mahi Mahi number 1, that is half the size but it still presents a nice starter for tonight’s dinner. I am however pleased to also report that John nearly did catch a fish, literally, at 4.00am this morning. A flying fish almost landed in his lap having knocked itself out flying straight into the Bimini on the boat!! No John, that is not a catch and you are 2-0 down with a “dropped catch” opportunity for Ben too!! I think a fishing regroup is needed overnight for John otherwise he runs the risk of being taunted by his nephew for a long time to come....

Talking of food, I am now officially on bread making watch as the bread maker now goes on at 4.00am to allow for a proper bacon sandwich first thing!! Skippers duties, as the person coming off watch at 4.00, include firing up the bread maker, white and soft crust is today’s loaf and bacon is on as I write. And guess what, if that was not enough, dinner last night included roast veg including roast potatoes, Chef Sue does such a great job given we present her with such tortuous conditions to work in with a rolling boat punctuated with a very rolling boat. I wonder how many ARC boats are making fresh bread and serving up roast potatoes? Answers on a postcard. We still have some fresh food left but we are now running lower so risks of scurvy increase from here on in.

Unfortunately dinner is still not being enjoyed by Clare. We knew that she would likely be affected by seasickness but we did not think it would last this long. Thankfully she is not being ill, but she cannot do much and even reading brings on the nausea. The trouble is, none of us can do anything to help her albeit I did consider suggesting a pit stop in the Cape Verde’s to drop her off!! We are hoping that in the next few days we get to the tradewinds where the boat will be more stable and her nausea will stop.

Other than that yesterday was pretty uneventful except for the boat issues we have. George the autopilot can no longer be trusted so we are forced to have someone behind the wheel at all times. This is tiresome but a necessary precaution given we are constantly sailing dead downwind and an unscheduled gybe could have considerable consequences.

As also reported yesterday, we have damaged the boom quite badly, we think it must have happened in our crash gybe incident a couple of days ago. Basically the boom, on one side, has a big dent/crease in it right where the main sheet meets the boom, the other side has obviously stretched because the boom is now bent. Whilst our gybe was not overly controlled, it was not that bad either and we had two reefs in the main at the time of the incident and Jack’s boom is huge. It does seem quite remarkable/strange that this should happen. The practical effect of this damage is that we are reasonably confident the boom is structurally sound on starboard tack as the boom is trying to straighten itself but we are not going to be confident on port tack where the boom could just fold and break. So short answer is, do not gybe and do not go on to port tack!!!!

Now back to routing. For any of you who follow the routing on the ARC website you will notice that, thankfully, our approach to the crossing has put us the most southerly boat in our class and one of the most southerly boats overall. However, as reported yesterday, we desperately wanted to go further south and the wind, now coming from a more Easterly direction, is stopping us doing that on Starboard tack. We need to gybe on to port but we cannot. The practical effect of this is that we are gradually being forced to rejoin the rest of the pack to the north which is very frustrating because that is not where we want to be. But needs must and we can just be thankful we are where we are, albeit we worked hard for it sailing dead downwind in some pretty breezy conditions and confused seas. As an aside, we have not seen another boat for a few days now so we know the minority are with us.

So today/tomorrow look difficult especially as we find our routing more northerly than we wanted. If it gets really light, and given the damage we have, we may be forced to motor to get us through the light patch without damaging the boat further but we will see.

Have a good day

Nick (the four hour watch keeper who gets five!)