Conditions have remained character building over the past 24 hours and in the light of the morning we noticed that there were problems with 4 of the mainsail luff slides. At the time the wind was blowing over 20 knots on the beam with rough seas but we thought it prudent to attempt a repair ASAP. Bearing in mind that there are only two of us onboard (Pippa Potamus was sleeping at the time), and the auto pilot is not working we felt we did a good job in dropping the mainsail, removing it entirely from the mast, replacing the webbing on the two headboard slides, replacing the entire next slide down, replacing the webbing on the longest batten slide, refitting the sail and rehoisting it, all in under one hour :) At the time we continued to sail under the #4 jib only and still made 6.5 knots on a direct course towards Cape Town. We are feeling quite pleased with ourselves today.
At the moment we are heading a bit towards the north east in order to position ourselved in the optimum position for when the next front arrives sometime on the 24th.
It is forecast to have gale force winds so we want to be careful of how we navigate around it.
We saw another whale yesterday and today there have been several Albatrosses flying around. As we have moved a bit north again the Flying fishes have also returned in force and between them, the Albatrosses, Petrels, Storm-petrels and Shearwaters we will soon be needing air traffic control around here.
Today we crossed the mid-Atlantic ridge, where the sea is less than 2 000 metres deep, but as we continue our way eastwards it is again getting deeper and will soon be over 4 000 metres again. When I last checked a few minutes ago we were 69 miles short of the halfway mark.
At the moment we are heading a bit towards the north east in order to position ourselved in the optimum position for when the next front arrives sometime on the 24th.
It is forecast to have gale force winds so we want to be careful of how we navigate around it.
We saw another whale yesterday and today there have been several Albatrosses flying around. As we have moved a bit north again the Flying fishes have also returned in force and between them, the Albatrosses, Petrels, Storm-petrels and Shearwaters we will soon be needing air traffic control around here.
Today we crossed the mid-Atlantic ridge, where the sea is less than 2 000 metres deep, but as we continue our way eastwards it is again getting deeper and will soon be over 4 000 metres again. When I last checked a few minutes ago we were 69 miles short of the halfway mark.
No comments:
Post a Comment