Amokura - Log Day 6 - Frittata disaster & fixes

Do we stop at night and anchor?
This is sometimes asked by non-sailing folks back home when you announce you are doing a long ocean crossing (or even a night passage across the English Channel!)

Not in 5000m of water you don't, and floating marinas in the centre of the Atlantic are yet to be invented! So round the clock sailing it is.

On Amokura we have been running 3 hrly night watches from sunset to sunrise. Currently 2000 GMT to 0800, we rotate these every night so it is fair and people have a turn to be on each watch.  When on night watch, lifejackets are always worn and we never leave the cockpit without waking another crew member and clipping on our safety lines.

Last night I did 2000-2300, which meant I got to see the sunset and have an uninterrupted 9 hours sleep. Bliss!
We will move this forward to start at 2100 GMT as the sun sets later the further west we go.  During the day we all take turns to catnap to catch up on any missed sleep. So far it's working really well and nobody seems to feel too shattered, despite the ceaseless motion which can make sleep challenging.

The skipper cooked last night's supper and had an egg-xiting time when the boat lurched and frittata mixture escaped from the pan, pouring down the back of the stove. Replacing the bowl on the worktop, it promptly tipped over as the boat bounced off a wave, and a tsunami of eggy mixture cascaded onto the floor. The Skipper is now banned from the galley by the first mate, who did all the clearing up. Luckily the accompanying baked beans weren't a further casualty....
Mark's turn to cook tonight, hopefully with less drama.

We spotted some chafe on the preventer this morning. This is the line we have attached to the boom and tied off to hold it in position and stop the boom dangerously crashing across the cockpit in case of a sudden unplanned gybe, a real possibility in these conditions. Balanced on the bouncing foredeck, a protecting slit section of hosepipe was put over the rope, held in place by - you guessed it - duct tape.
Sometimes Amokura is caught by a rogue wave roaring up behind, which pushes her stern round and off course. The genoa, poled-out on the boom, then backs, the wind filling it from the 'wrong' side. The autohelm then gets her back on course, the genoa then fills again, sometimes violently - bang! It's like a gunshot and the whole boat shudders. Not pleasant for crew or gear. We sometimes tweak the course by a few degrees to minimise the occurrence.

Made some more water today as the boat. Following the earlier watermaker problems, which we didn't sort in Mindelo, we still have the pipe snaking up from the engine room out of the saloon hatch and down into the water tank via the deck fitting on the port side. Water has been sloshing down the side deck less regularly as we are heeling over slightly less but the protection of an old towel and another use for the magic duct tape was found.

1000 miles off land and a beautiful black and white bird with a long tail was spotted circling the boat. We're not sure what it was - where's David Attenborough when you need him? We haven't seen much wildlife for a couple of days and have paused the fishing activities due to the continuing presence of seaweed.

Our position update from the ARC shows we have moved up a few places in the fleet. Amokura is liking the conditions, a steady following wind 17 - 25 knots and she is remarkably stable with the two headsails poled out either side. We fly these round the clock.  We have altered course slightly to go south of the rhum line as the latest forecast shows the better wind there over the next few days.

And so the days and nights pass...

Miles run in last 24hrs: 180nm
Average speed: 7.5 kts
Miles to Grenada: 1096 nm

Signing off..

Liz Brigstocke