A week in….
It’s exactly a week after the start that I write this, so we have been out of sight of land for a whole week. For horny sea-dogs that may not be much, but for most of the crew of Challenger 2 it’s pretty significant, especially since have perhaps ten more days before we get to St Lucia. The boat is now like a spaceship – gliding through a hazardous environment, which we are unable to leave, unless we desire a long swim.
So, what lessons have you learned, I hear you ask? Number one is checking your clothing apparel before departure – do not leave home in untested underwear. I made the mistake of buying a massive job-lot of pants (or should that read a job-lot of massive pants?) from a well-known high street emporium, but didn’t wear any of them before departure. I don’t know who modelled these garments and concluded they were a good fit, but he and I are anatomically very different and this is causing certain challenges which I’ll leave to your imagination.
‘No you idiot, tell us about the sailing,,’, I hear you shout! That’s unless you’ve all been overcome in a zombie apocalypse since we’ve been away – we wouldn’t know much about it as our Universe consists of; inside of boat, outside of boat, clouds of varying descriptions, brilliant stars, shooting stars and endless seascapes which change in character every day. Oh, it looks like I just described the sailing….
We’ve actually had two visitors today. The first was detected through a flapping sound and really fishy smell at around 3am – we couldn’t see it as it’s pitch black on deck. It turned out to be a flying fish that, in trying to escape the boat actually landed on the deck. Doh! My watchmates concluded it was too small to eat and so it was unceremoniously ejected, probably wondering ‘what was that all about’. Our second visitor was about two hours ago – a fin whale, which leapt out of the water 100m astern, to much ooing and aahing from the crew.
You can never relax on watch. We were coming to the end of our 7pm to 11pm watch last night, when skipper Ricky decided we needed to lower the enormous spinnaker sail and raise another type. We looked at each other, thinking ‘he means tomorrow morning surely’? Er no, I mean now! So that’s how we found ourselves working on deck under the floodlight, with blackness all around the boat, executing (rather well) the lowering and stowing of the huge sail and raising its replacement. Keen to avoid falling into said black void, I ensured I was clipped on and gripping with all available appendages. Ironically, as I type this, the order has gone out to raise the spinnaker – most inconvenient as Gary and Mike we about to serve an excellent lunch.
Take care and love to all – Jim
Mates Blog
After a few days of settled seas and calm winds we have been sail changing between the spinnaker and the genoa mainly with regard to wind angles and desired course.
The crew are becoming a well oiled machine and are often found in the correct place pre-empting the next set of instructions making manoeuvres run efficiently and smoothly.
Last night, having held the spinnaker well, the wind direction shifted and caused us to have a little more south in our course than desired. With both Ricky and I on deck at midnight UT Ricky made the call to drop the spinnaker and pole and hoist the Genoa. This allowed us a better angle to the wind.
The crew jumped to action stations in the dark night, after a thorough brief the spinnaker was spiked, sail dropped and stowed below.
It is a credit to the crew, their enthusiasm and how much they’ve learnt that we were then able to simultaneously hoist the Genoa, drop the pole and wool the spinnaker so that the whole manoeuvre took no time at all!
Every person on board was involved in some way and Barry who was on his ‘off night’ after his mother watch even came up to manage the halyard – thanks!
1000nm Complete!
We are now making a good course westwards with the winds fluctuating in their speed. Almost 1000nm ran with around 1950 to go!
We are still enjoying flat seas but that looks to begin to change as stronger winds are forecast, a wall of clouds on the windward horizon confirming this.
No dolphins today so far but we have seen an unusual amount of birds and had our first flying fish land on deck last night. This left a legacy of silver scales behind before being cast back out to sea!
An excited shout came from Jason and I just managed to turn in time to see the same huge crash of white water cascade down from a large creature broaching!
All on deck searched for more sightings and it surfaced again two more times, revealing a small fin (possibly a Fin Whale?) before disappearing once more.
Kirstie
Sun setting in the Atlantic
A Musical Interlude from Mothers Watch
Lettuce, plums, pears, avocados, peppers, carrots, pineapples, mango’s, sweet corn, apples, celery, tomatoes, onions, potatoes
All sung to the tune “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.
To the uninitiated, that is roughly the order in which our 200 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables will rot if we don’t eat them first. Your first priority when preparing meals on Mother Watch is to utilise the fresh stores in the order that they will rot.
A few of my favourite things
In unrelated non-musical news, somewhere in the dark of night we hit a milestone. We are less than 2,000 nautical miles from St Lucia, having covered over 1/3 of our required distance in under 7 days running time, in spite of poor winds. The winds picked up dramatically last night and are predicted to stay at this level for the duration of our journey. With luck, and no mistakes, we should be able to cover the remaining 2/3 of the race in 11-12 days.
This was real good news to all as yesterday was a long day, actually a real long day. We turned our ship clocks back an hour during each of the 2 afternoon watches, to accommodate the time zones we have sailed through, so yesterday was a real 26 hour day. Whilst below deck typing this blog entry, I apparently missed a fin whale surfacing near our boat.
Love and wishes to all back home,
Gary
Current ARC Positions
Skippers Log
Date : 1 December 2019
Time : 12:00 GMT (12am Boat Time)
Position : 20.54 N 27.41 W
Position : 4000m above Kane Seamount
Destination : Rodney Bay, St Lucia
ETA : 1100 Dec 15 (GPS)
DTF : 2105 Distance Run 805
24 Hour Run : 161 DMG in 24 Hours : 159
Required Knots for 15 Dec : 5.4, Arrival at 8 Knots : 10 Dec
Wind : AWA : 85 AWS : 10
Sailplan : Full Main, Genoa
POB : 14, all in good health and happy
Today on Challenger 2 : Mexican Themed Food !
Breakfast : Bacon and Egg Rolls, Lunch : Frittatas, Dinner : Chicken Fajitas with cheesy nachos
Music : Singing of the propeller, whale songs
Fishing Score : 27/11 1x Large Dorado
Notes and comments:
Some decent wind at last and a good wind angle as well. We started off shortly after midday yesterday reaching with the spinnaker until the wind shifted further forward. Eventually we chose course over speed and went back to the Genoa. Systems all working well on board and water maker still producing about 18l/hr. I ran up the main engine to temperature just as a check, all good.
We now have 5.4 knots of target speed to get to Rodney Bay by the 15th, compared to the 5.8 target speed at the start – we are finally ahead of the curve.
Continued with the Genoa until early afternoon yesterday before launching the spinnaker. Much cheering on deck for ‘top speed records’ before the winds rose slightly and we calmed the deck in favour for consistent speeds and more controlled helming. Now flying the spinnaker (2200UT), coaching on steady helming to keep the apparent wind speed low and the boat comfortable.
The wind coming round caused us to add more south to our track than desired, so with both of us on deck at midnight (UT) we dropped the spinnaker and pole and re-hoisted the Genoa. This went very smoothly and surprisingly took no time at all with the crew being well prepped and now pretty smooth at being in the correct place and pre-empting the next instruction. This allowed the Genoa to be hoisted at the same time as the pole going down and the spinnaker being wooled below by the new coming on watch team. Very impressed with them!
First exciting whale sighting, a big broach (only the splash seen) then 2 more of its back and fin … a fin whale maybe?
Bannana’s now on the menu – yum!!
