Race 3 - Day 20
Crew Diary - Cape Town, South Africa to Albany, Australia
20 November

Henry Dale
Henry Dale
Team Unicef
Back to Reports View Team Page

It's not all sailing, you know. I spent two hours of the last watch pumping water out of the bottom of the boat. The dreaded "Bilges" duty which comes around once every 10 days. Don't be alarmed -- the bottom of the boat is designed to contain water, so that when it comes down through the hatches or through leaks in the mast or deck fittings, it drains to the lowest point in the boat from where it can be pumped as a matter of routine. It's all part of maintaining the boat.

There are several separate bilges, isolated from one another by bulkheads from the front to the back of the boat. This is so that a catastrophic leak in one compartment can be contained by closing bulkhead doors and can't creep under through a connected bilge.

Bilge Duty, then, involves checking several separate bilges for water, and pumping them out if necessary. Today, the largest volume of water had accumulated in the Lazarette, or "Laz" as people refer to it after they've been on the boat a few days, as if they've been sailing for years.

The Laz is a compartment under the deck at the stern (the back) which is completely separate from the rest of the boat. This is where you'll find all the things people don't want in the living area - rubbish bags full of non-jettisonable waste, fuel cans, buckets, vacuum cleaners, spare rope, the steering gear, those cuddly toys people insist on bringing as mascots, our five-a-side football equipment, the volleyball net, Drake's golf clubs, Big Jim's archery set, and so on. Many people cannot pump the Laz bilge because it involves lying down, often with the head lower than the torso, in an atmosphere of diesel fumes and waste smell, while the boat heaves and rolls around. You need a strong stomach for the worst jobs on a boat. Weaklings need not apply.

For all its supposed unpleasantness, I find Bilge Duty preferable to cleaning the Heads, which is also another non-sailing duty that rotates around the crew. Others in this series are: Engineering, which is where someone sticks their head in the engine room and claims to have checked the engine; Nav, which requires an hourly entry in the boat's sailing log loosely related to what is going on outside; and Deck, where all the deck fittings are checked - in particular the integrity of the running jackstays, which are what crew clip themselves to to prevent an "MOB", or Man Overboard.

Finally, there is the mother of all duties, the Mother Duty. On this leg,

Mother comes around every ten days, and I'm due to do it again for the third time this trip the day after tomorrow. On this leg I have been paired with my media colleague Tzen, and the crew have taken to calling us Tzenry.

On our last Mother, we cooked macaroni cheese (for the third time since those heady days in St Kat's!), which I augmented with some biltong fuzz given to me for the trip by my good mate Warren. This combo sent the crew wild, and they have been raiding my biltong stash ever since they found out I had additional supplies. Thanks Warren - we need more - as much as you can send!

Everyone is well and in high spirits. We're making good progress and we're now a shade over 1,400 miles away from Albany - or six weeks at Unicef pace. Only kidding; we should be there in less than a week unless the wind dies.

I don't even know if they're reading this, but if they are, Hi from the Southern Ocean to my nephews and nieces: Tris, Sam, Louis, Maddie, and Angharad.

Until anon

Henry