Freedom - Blog 13 Friday 1st December 2023

Editor CJH.

Good Morning/afternoon All,
25 Days to Christmas, currently seems a million miles away as we bowl along with following wind and waves, seeking shade during the middle of the day and for those in the front bunks, frequently finding it too hot too sleep at night. The thought of snow back home seems surreal!
Yesterday was a beautiful day with 10/13knt winds, puffy white clouds, light trade wind conditions, relaxing and enjoyable with a fair bit of reading being undertaken by most or the crew when not attending to various daily tasks, from rubbish compaction to cleaning. Simon stepped into the kitchen to prepare our evening meal, as he has now done on several occasions to relieve Masterchef Ian, and under the latter's guidance produced another superb offering of lamb with rosemary, roasties and salad, followed by a fruit salad desert.
We have received a couple of enquiries from our Welsh brethren (Graham, with whom I crossed the Atlantic 10yrs ago, and Tess Pike) concerning domestic arrangements the answers to which may be of interest to you all. 1. We have kept out clocks on UTC ( I.e UK time despite now being theoretically about 2 hours behind the majority of you. This means the dawn comes later and similarly dusk, although the nights and days at this latitude are generally about 12hrs each. This preserves the watch system which is actually rotating between the five of us every two hours so there is a natural ‘circulation’ of changing watch times. 2. We have a STRICT sitting down policy for all deposits in the heads, no gentlemen ‘sprinkling’ will be tolerated. 3. I haven’t had to develop an obsession with cleaning the cabin floor as Simon has adopted the much welcomed daily chore of sweeping the cabin and sluicing the cockpit - (all great lessons learned from the late Francis Williams on the last trip who is frequently remembered by those that sailed with him).
Sunset came and a stunning horizon of golden orange clouds said good night to us as we entered an initially moonless night (due to rise at about 2230hrs), and the sky filled with a billion twinkling lights bringing on the inevitable awe inspiring wonder in all of us. The sky was dark but mainly clear and wonderful to behold (yet again). It was about this time that the breeze unexpectedly increased to between 16/20knts gusting 21/22/23. As previously mentioned the higher wind ranges are too much for us with the spinnaker up especially at night. You won’t be surprised to learn I was reluctant to douse it immediately as I suspected the wind would die off again and that we would be reluctant to hoist it again at night and end up wallowing around at 4/5 knts in the forecast breeze. The waves began to rise and we suffered a couple of broaches (unlike some yachts, Freedom is very well behaved in a broach she rounds up relatively slowly and we can usually immediately bear away again, amidst a lot of noise (sails flapping wildly) refill the kite and proceed again on the roller coaster. The other problem encountered was that we tried to de power the Spinnaker by letting the pole forward and flattening the kite and ‘hiding’, from the wind, half the spinnaker behind the main sail thereby reducing the prospect of a windward roll and, ultimately, a Chinese gybe (not recommended - name check Bob Durie Round the Island Race 1994(?) My profuse apologies again Bob, but a lesson from 30yrs ago never forgotten!). The solution works well but with the undesirable consequence that occasionally, if sailed to deep, there is a tendency to get the spinnaker ‘Wrapped’ around the forestry! Now the latter won’t mean much to most of you but it is extremely undesirable because if you can’t get it ‘unwrapped’ you can’t get the spinnaker down, coupled with a propensity to damage/rip it. Needless to say we suffered a couple of wraps, just to add to the ‘entertainment’.
Given conditions we decided to revert to two handed watches of four hours. Things seemed to settle a little after an hour or two and I took to my cabin for some rest, fully clothed with my life jacket on in case rapid assistance was required. Five minutes later, we broached again. This time however in dumping the mainsail the main sheet ran completely out of the main sheet block, meaning we had no control of the mainsail, not ideal under the circumstances! With some difficulty Stuart managed to stoically re- wreath the main sheet and we regained control. As many sailors will know one error/mistake/misjudgment frequently leads to another and a situation can quickly compound itself. There is a little more to this tale which will be best told in the bar (by which time the wind will have been blowing 30 knots and the seas mountainous), however, as ever, when something goes wrong valuable lessons were learned for similar situations in the future.
Following the latter the consensus was to douse the kite and revert to a more conservative set up!!! This transpired to be good decision, one which I must admit, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have taken earlier. Running pretty much dead down wind, during the night, we poled out the Genoa and have been ‘goose winging’ (one sail out each side with the wind behind us). This point of sailing is reasonably quick, safe but very ‘rolly’ and takes some getting used to, especially if your trying to sleep. Stuff in the cabin, which you thought was secure, often flys everywhere and a reassessment of stowage arrangements ensues.
Today we remain goose winged in slightly less breeze 15/18 knts but are making good progress towards the target at about 6.5 knts increasing to c. 8/9knts when we surf down waves. We have effected a repair to an old patch on the spinnaker with sail repair material supplied by Mike Berry at Octogon Sails Covers and Canvas, a nicer bloke you couldn’t wish to meet (he’ll be arriving in Rodney Bay shortly!), however, for the time being the kite remains in its bag!
Until tomorrow’s less exciting episode, we wish you love and best wishes from the Freedom Fighters xxxxx
PS A special mention to Rachel (the Whitakers decorator), who send us a lovely and moving message for which we are grateful.