Blogstar vs Franschman.nl
posted by Bart at 11:49
Well, things have settled down a bit, here on board. As some of you may not know yet, during the first night of the race, my whole fore deck hatch was torn off while I was working in the fore deck. A sheet or halyard must have been caught under the hatch and when a big sea came over, all I heard was a load bang and I found myself with a 4 sq feet hole in the foreward part of the boat. And a big sea breaking over it every ten seconds. So I immediately slowed the boat down as much as I could, to prevent too much water entering the boat, wrapped a sail over it, and at first light started to make an emergency hatch cover out of one of my floorboards. This took a couple of hours, also for sikaflex to cure, and ;in total I think I lost about half a day racing. Inside the boat everything was (and mostly still is...) wet. All my cloths, my vegetables, tools, etc. So at the first calm day, 3 or 4 days ago, I tried to dry out as much as possible. But once salt, things don't dry very well. I think this bloody hatch cost me about half a day racing.
Anyhow, after a week's sailing, we've all made considerable progress, thanks to a small but rather fierce depression to our south. I also broke the boat's best day's run, by a huge margin, to bring it to 200 miles in 24 hours. And also the best surf ever: just before dark 2 days ago, sailing on top of a large breaking wave, like a surfer, for what seemed to be indefinitely, at a speed of 14.6 knots. Autopilot steering, me inside watching in awe.
But now the strong wind has gone, and we are likely to get some days of light wind. We shall see.
And one last thought: yesterday we've been crossing the mid Atlantic ridge, and from now on we are sailing over the North American tectonic plate. Not that you can see any difference from here, but it does make feel that we are well underway to Newport.
Bart
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