Saturday 9 August 2014

Day 2 and 36 hours sailing.....

Blog update Friday 8 August 0800
 It's Friday morning and we have been underway for almost 24 hours. We are now near the northwest tip of Denmark and about 5 miles off the coast heading 015deg and making 5knots. We are currently motoring as we are too close hauled to make our desired heading completely under sail. Yesterday afternoon we started the watch system. There are three watches of 6, 6 and 5 people. Watches run from 2pm to 8pm, 8pm to midnight, midnight to 4am, 4am to 8am then 8am to 2pm, and so on. It was a much quieter ship than last night as people were either on deck, sleeping , playing backgammon (Tingey 5 - Godfried nil) or relaxing. Overnight the sea was calm and the moon was out. There were clear skies, plenty of stars to spot, and tales to be told as we huddled around the wheelhouse taking turns to helm. Steering on such a big ship is no easy matter with 9 sails up! The overnight slot was a bit tough on the first day, but then we did say we wanted to get stuck in. Morning broke to clear warm sunny skies. Half of us are now sleeping so breakfast is very quiet. White watch are back on deck sunning themselves and why not.


Blog update Friday 8 August 1000
 Marion decides to do a bit of washing. Like you do. Ann is practicing her guitar and everyone else is either asleep or reading. Ship on autopilot. So where to hang the wet clothes? Eddie asks if Marion would like to go up the mast, and I guess she thinks it's a transaction thing. OK why not. So in the harness, swings on to the the gunwale and up the rigging she goes. The readers have to put their books down to watch this. "Your missus is more intrepid than you Ghani. Haha" Richard was quick to point out. In 2 minutes Marion is on the platform 28m above the deck and admiring the view. The rest of us are getting vertigo just craning our necks to see. Coming down appears to be harder. Eddie then asks if anyone else wants to go up and suddenly everyone has gone. Except Dave "tigger" Hampson-Ghani. He can't not go now that Marion has beat him to it. So on with the harness and now the head-cam GoPro gear and away he goes like a little 12 year old. "Slow down, not so fast" calls out Mary as if that would make any difference. Dave draws blood on the rigging and threatens to splatter the sail. Typical, can't do anything simple like climb up the rigging with out making a drama of it.

Blog update Friday 8 August 2100
Skipper Martin reports at midday that there is an intense low coming up from the south and it really would be a good idea to try and out run it as there are 40 knot winds on the front. So we head 015deg and decide we can'can't make Sweden. Crossing the Skaggerat we loose sight of land as we cross the Norwegian trench (which is 400m deep in places). Robyn says it's a breeze which can sometimes be an awful crossing. Raynee is still dragging a line in the vain hope of catching something. After a morning lecture on meteorology from Marten where we learnt the basics of the Coriolis effect though the analogy of cannonballs and balistics, we had a teach in from Nikki on knots. Some of needed the story of the rabbit and the tree to do a bowline, whilst others used the drunkard and the pub. Guess who that was. Dead flat calm sea in the afternoon made for a very comfortable crossing. Land sighted at 1700. Supper at 1930 followed by a beautiful sunset. Due alongside at Arundel at about midnight. Apparently there's a festival in town this weekend.

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