The latest Yacht sail developments and race news
Click here for more news stories
Roasting in the doldrums
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Tom Gruitt celebrates reaching half way in leg 1 of the Clipper Race aboard Cape Breton Island.
"Just a short one for today as not too much has been happening down here. We are doing pretty well and making good inroads into the doldrums at the moment, but we still have wind! Team Finland have parked up and are less than 60 miles ahead in first place at the moment, the longer we carry on like this the more their lead is in jeopardy. When we get the 0600 schedules we will find out how we have done overnight against them, let's hope we are now right on their tail.
"We are currently running with the medium weight spinnaker as we had up to 24 knots of breeze in the night, although this has dropped off somewhat now. Again I find myself working at 0400 in the morning so this gets posted on the morning internet connection (our email connects four times a day). Last night we were followed by dolphins again, but this time I was trying out a new technique to photograph them, flash! They didn't seem to mind and even more grouped round when they realised they were having their photo taken, they are the vainest creatures in the sea by a long way.
"We are just over half way in distance now which brought a big cheer amongst the crew, but we are well over half way in terms of time. Once we get the other side of the ITCZ we can make great progress towards Rio on the trade winds, which can sometimes get pretty strong but are normally in the right direction. The doldrums are going to be the hardest part of this leg of the race, even just doing a few miles a day can gain you a huge lead on the other side.
"As the sun went down we saw some large storm clouds brewing on the horizon, they didn’t seem to come to much and all we had were a few spits of rain. We are waiting with anticipation for the tropical rainstorms to come so we can all stand on deck and have a shower without using lots of our freshly made water. Making water on board is a daily routine, the generator gets fired up early normally waking me up as it gets going, then the water maker is turned on and let to run through for a bit before the fresh water is directed into the tanks. It makes about 30 litres of fresh water an hour from the 300 litres of salt water that it takes in, a time consuming process when you have a large tank to fill. Other daily duties include cleaning the boat and heads and making sure all the food is out ready for the next day. Deck and rig checks need to be done often to reduce the risk of any major failure, also halyards need to be adjusted a few times a day to make sure that the load is spread over a different place to stop chaffing.
"It's not long until the schedules need to be done so I had better send this before the skipper takes over the nav station for a while, let's hope our overnight effort had paid off."
posted by Hyde Sails at
00:56
Designed & Built by ProAction Creative Ltd.