Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' ...

Yesterday was horrible from the movement point of view, very rolly, we still have 3.5m sea swell and with just the genoa up and the wind astern we roll like billly o! I had all of the genoa out for a bit but the wind picked up to 34 knots so 2 reefs seemed more appropriate, at one point I thought I had lost a soft shackle in the clew which would have meant one of the sheets coming off the genoa, had this happened in a gale it would have been alarming but it turned out not to be that, I had managed to hoist the pole a twingle, and it was the uphaul partially untwingling itself from the lazy sheet that I had seen, quite a relief.

On the pepper grinder front; I dug out my pot of arbitrary nuts and bolts and first found a nut that fitted, then found a domed nut that fitted and looked better, all good. Of course, then, I found the original knurled knob for the top too, it was on the saloon table, it must have come off before being put away and the thing then collapsed during the night, anyway all is good on the pepper pot front.

There were several rain showers through the day: A fault of the autopilot and the chart plotter is that occasionally they are affected by rain, thinking that the rain is someone touching the screen to give them instructions, it doesn’t happen much I’ve only had it once but in one rain shower I put the covers on to stop it’s possibility. Obviously with the covers on I can’t see the screens and the autopilot went into standby mode and I didn’t realise until the sail was flogging like a mad thing. Taking the covers off now  (once I’d regained control in hand steering) the screens were blank - they’d gone into night mode with the covers on so I had to wait for a couple of minutes to be able to see them again. Anyway no harm done but I may stick to putting my hat in front of the thing next time.

It was blowing most of a gale most of yesterday and I’m dredging my library to find books to read and currently re reading HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean, I’d forgotten how good it was but it’s a bit like Wuthering Heights in that when you think things can’t get any worse the continue to get a lot worse and in the morning, when it was blowing hard, he has a vivid description of an Arctic Storrm playing havoc with the ship and fleet, not the most reassuring reading when sitting down below worried about the gale blowing outside!

In the middle of dinner, well after I’d had the curry once but not my seconds, the wind shifted to the North East so I ditched the pole and put the main back up and we became instantly much more comfortable, we’re still like that and going along well at 7+ knots but I doubt it’ll be a record day as we spent a lot of yesterday downwind  only managing about 5.5 knots.

We did another 164 miles yesterday and currently have 1180 to go.

Slainte

Jock, Patrick and Yemaya.