Date: 20/10/13 Time: 21:30 Location: 38.24.46N 13.30.52E Today has been a day of very light airs sailing. We decided to go searching for more breeze as the boat performance suffers majorly in the light airs. It is a little more manageable in the 5-10 knots range than the sub 5 knot range. It’s tough trying to live with these conditions knowing that the boat it’s purposely designed for power reaching and heavy airs running. Therefore the IRC rating really hammers us in this stuff. We think we’ve lost some ground to most boats around us. We decided to head offshore as we believed that the gradient wind from the south was conflicting with the cooler air being drawn in towards the warmer rising air over Sicily. A small group of boats did this, Hugo Boss & Wild Joe (Possibly). Caro and the TP52 appear to have stayed inshore although it is tough to say which was right. Most of the boats around us don’t have their AIS transmitting and we are too far away from land to get phone signal to check the yellowbrick tracker. Because of the amount of miles lost to Hugo Boss each time the “A Watch” go off watch (we believe the running total is somewhere in the region of 12 miles so far) Andy, the skipper, as decided to rename the “B Watch to “Y Watch”. The reason for doing so is that at each handover the questions along the lines of “Why have we lost so much ground” get asked. Nevertheless spirits are high; everyone is getting the hang of helming the boat now. The trick of bringing the boat up into the breeze to build the speed above the true wind speed, as the apparent wind moves forwards bear down to transfer the pace into depth. Today was a beautiful sun filled sky now followed by another clear, potentially cooler, moon lit night. There is an increase of shipping in the area, passing within a few hundred meters of one particular cruise ship. Conditions inside the boat today have been a little tough, the odour of shoes worn without socks is starting to fill parts of the cabin, and the heat created by the generator doesn’t aid the situation. There was another rendition of “Pasta Surprise” tonight that was well received by the crew. I did successfully manage to take up the freeze dried option without insulting Johno, Lasagne! Although it could have done with a side of garlic bread … Our ETA at the next headland is sometime in the morning before turning South. We’re anticipating the breeze to build to around 20 knot once we round and a fetch to the next waypoint. If we don’t get to the headland before morning then we could end up being stuck in a patch on no wind for some time….
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 03:16:40 +0000