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ARC14 Blogoramma - Life at 45 degrees



24:14.2N  026:02.7W
 
Tune of the Day: "When the Going Gets Tough", Billy Ocean
 
Day 5.  A challenging 24 hours.  No sooner had we finished enjoying Ben's second culinary masterpiece of the day - Doggie Pie - and the wind swung around to the NW putting us on a beam reach.  After dark it started to gust 25+ kts and we could nolonger hold our course.  We had to bear off the wind, hand steering for long periods during the night as Beryl (our trusty auto-helm) couldn't cope with the gusts.  The boat went over onto a 45' heel and everything down below became pretty chaotic.  The leecloth holding jags into his bunk broke and he landed with a crash and led to a "Jags moment".  Minkey spent a sleepless night trying to get into any kind of position in the stern cabin but mostly ended up twisted around duvet in an upside down position.
 
We also broke the shackle holding up our headsail and had an hour of drama while we dragged it out of the sea and replaced it with our spare headsail. Our first major breakage and, yes, Mike was helming at the time.  After much faffing and grunting, we all fell into our bunks, wet, salt crusted and frustrated that we had lost a couple of hours of boat speed. Once settled, we attempted to lug Mike's dead weight up the mast to fix the broken shackle. However, it only resulted in him gaining a few more bruises, whilst swearing like a, well, sailor, and unable to resolve the issue due to the lumpy seas.
 
The conditions are enduring during the day today and it is truly horrific down below now.  The boat cleaners will have one heck of a job to do when we make landfall...
 
Here are some top tips for this kind of sailing ("Life at a 45' heel angle"):
 
- make sure you get the leeward (lower) side bunk. Resort to violence if necessary
- failing this, just sleep anywhere where you can wedge yourself in and not move.
- make sure you don't mind lots of physical intimate contact with other men.
- if you do get thrown against something, make sure it is soft enough to break you fall (like Ben for example)
- don't try to use the heads (that's boaty speak for toilets).  No, just don't...
 
And finally... A big shoutout to Team Indulgence from ARC 2012 who are apparently following our blog. You'll be glad to know that this time we did buy enough potatoes - so didn't have to beg, borrow or steal from any Irish competitors on start day - and the diesel leak has been found but we've not cleaned it up yet...
 
Don't forget to keep sending us your comments, questions and problems to [email protected] They're a massive moral boost for us all in these tough conditions.
Daily stats for today:
 
Max Boat speed = 8.5 kts
Number of Reefs = Nil
Maximum Gust = 25 kts
Number of sails in the water = 1
Wildlife = Lots of birds - sorry Paul, we weren't counting
Amount of Rain = None
 
Jags, Minkey, Ben and Mike

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