Day 3: Saturday 23rd November – Pete’ll fix it!
We woke this morning feeling very tired and a little downhearted,
which has been typical of Day 3 of our longer voyages so far. The children still suffer from feeling sick and it takes the rest of us time to adjust to our watch shift
patterns and going about daily activities with the boat rocking around all over
the place.
To add to this, we were very low on battery power as late yesterday
evening we discovered that Generator was broken. Thankfully, Pete had a good
idea what the problem was. After watching a beautiful sunrise and making a
breakfast of frankfurters and beans (which Jess managed to actually keep down!),
Charlie went on a mission to find the required replacement part. By lunchtime, the generator was up and
working again, and the children received a hands-on Science lesson in the process!
We were starting to get frustrated with our progress. Following the recommended route of heading Southwards
for the best winds, had meant that the majority of the fleet were way
ahead. With winds dropping, we decided
to put in a starboard tack and made some good progress Westwards overnight,
passing several mega fishing vessels whose lights lit up the black night sky for
miles around.
Day 4: Sunday 24th November – Sail Dilemma
A much better night’s sleep was had by all. The rollers and
wind waves were dropping in size and the children were starting to feel better. Jess was offered any breakfast of her choice and went for dry crackers and
gherkins which were enjoyed immensely.
The mood on board was much improved and I spent some of my
morning watch being entertained by a sea bird attempting to catch flying fish
that were being disturbed by the boat’s wake.
Due to a change in the wind direction overnight we’d veered half
a degree Northwards (30 nautical miles!), undoing most of our hard work from
the previous few days.
We first attempted gull winging to alter our course further
South, but this proved to be slow and very rocky. Pete, Jo and Charlie then ventured out on
deck to set to work configuring the our ‘Code D’ sail, a Genneker which is a large
light sail perfect for light wind conditions.
We recently purchased this sail to avoid having to motor as much as possible; something
we had to do much of the way down the Portuguese coast.
We sailed like a dream all afternoon. Jo taught the children for a couple of hours –
they watched a very interesting documentary on the South Pacific, followed by a
Quiz, which was enjoyed by all. I got to
work making a Sunday roast at Jess’ request. She was definitely starting to feel better.
Whilst we were sailing like a dream and the conditions were
calm, we decided to put the Code D down in case of overnight squalls and went
with the main sail, hoping that the wind didn’t change course once more.
Day 5: Monday 25th November – Genneker success!
We made good progress overnight, only veering slightly North
in the early hours of the morning. With
calm winds and seas, we put up the Genneker after day break and enjoyed a relaxing
day sailing.
We'd tweaked our watch shift patterns which was working
well and started to find the capacity for better organising life on board. We configured a lattice of blankets around
the cockpit area, which made watch keeping much more bearable in the searing heat. We also set the children
to work on writing a daily quiz each – a tradition we established long ago with
the Hall family on our crossing from La Rochelle to Gijon.
With continued calm conditions, we braved leaving the Code D
sail up into the night.