Position @ 1200 UTC
35⁰ 16.73 N 51⁰ 05.03 W
Nautical Miles traveled in last 24 hrs:- 140
Very quiet night and still motor sailing and heading east, south east. The only problem was that during the night Chris tried to bring in the Staysail and it jammed so not being that important he left it. When I came up with Paddy it was daylght and as the sea was calm went up to the bow to see what had happened. The ball bearing race that attached the top of the staysail to the furlinhg foil had become tangled and twisted around the foil. This happened back in February whilst in Antigua. I had a rigger look at it and though there were several ball bearings missing he said he had seen worse and that it only wantd lubricating. This we did and it has been fine, until now! When Andrew was up he and I dropped the staysail on the deck and gave the ball bearing race a good grease and sent it back up the foil. It worked again and we were able to furl the staysail away again. Unfortunatly there are now more ball bearings missing so must get a new one as soon as possible.
After listening to the net again and seing the weather forecast we dcided to turn due East, we think we have gone as far South as we need to to avoid the worst of the weather, time will tell if we made the right call or not! Anyway by heading around 090 degrees, we had what wind there was available right up our backside, so we rigged for down wind sailing. Out came the big pole and we poled out the Jib and out came the whisker pole and we poled out the staysail and there we were travelling between 5 and 6 knots, no engine; great!
During lunch we had a chat about watches and duties etc., and we all agreed that Paddy (Grainne) was not ready yet to manage a night watch on her own and would not be able to change sail settings if needed so the thre of us will continue with the 3 man watch system we have and is working very well: Paddy would undertake mother watch and do the cooking. I explained that the whole point of having 4 on board was to share the watches etc but if she undertook the cookinmg duties that would also be a great help. There is no reason why she can’t help with other watches and learn if she feels so disposed, I hope she does.
I made a Lasagne tonight and that saw off the last of our fresh meat and chocolate brownies were also made as the oven was already on. We are still on bread we bought in Bermuda but this is coming to an end so willhave to bake bread in the next day or so!!!
Afternoon matanee was differewnt, no BBC today, it was the film “Notting Hill”,a change so no beer and no crisps!
Looking at the weather and seting night sails, we decided to continue with the poled out jib and stay sail, it was working welkl and the winds were just about right,soseetomorrow what happened, hopefully nothing!!