Crew Blog

Weather - the biggest uncertainty?

28 November 2007

If death and taxes are the real certainties in life, then surely the weather must count as the biggest uncertainty.

We were forecast a change in wind speed and direction last night. That didn’t happen. Then this morning there was a discussion on deck that went something along the lines of ‘Those clouds look ominous, shall we put another reef in, just in case?’. With the reply: ‘Oh no, that’ll never hit us. We’ll be fine’. Then the thunder and lightening started, along with the jokes about the barefoot helm (me) being the best conductor of lightening. Still ok. Then the wind picked up to 30 knots. A bit more difficult to control, but still ok. Forty knots was fairly sporting, and a few minutes later when the wind reached fifty-odd knots the skipper had grabbed the wheel, as I’d just fallen off it!

Thoughts of sail trim and best course went flying out the window at that stage, as we were just clinging on. A proper white knuckle ride. The boom was banging about, the whole boat shaking, and the crew down below thought they were in a fast spin cycle. It was windy enough to blow off half our windex. There’s now only the pointy bit of the arrow left. Luckily we emerged with crew and boat otherwise unscathed, just wet and giggling.

It was only by chance that we had any idea of the wind speeds. Our newly fixed electrical instruments decided to pack up moments after the race start. Marvellous. We can now get boat speed in the nav station but not on deck, and we intermittently get wind speed on deck but not below. Not ideal for racing, but not impossible.

Unsurprisingly, there has been a fair amount of sea sickness, mainly from the new crew but the old hands haven’t entirely escaped. Dinner portions were enormous yesterday as so few of us were eating,(always a silver lining). But people are starting to feel a bit better, and hopefully it’ll only last a day or so. Like this breeze is supposed to…

One love,

Claire