Good morning Black Betty fans, its currently 0945 ships time on board, and I've decided to get stuck into my blog early today, in the hopes that I can write a bit of a longer entry as yesterdays was rather short due to the fear of drowning in my own sweat! The further north we go, the higher the temperature is getting on board, and we still have a long way to go to the equator yet.
Sailing wise it’s been light and changeable. I've lost count of the number of swaps between Yankee 1 and Staysail we have done now, constantly trying to achieve the best of both boat speed and wind angle. In this light upwind weather, it's terribly frustrating, do you stick with the Yankee 1 and get the extra height, but sacrifice speed? Or do you go with the Windseeker, squeeze a few more points of a knot boat speed out of Black Betty, but at the cost of course? Decisions, decisions.
Overnight we had a few squalls pass over us, that brought the swift increases and shifts in wind that are often associated with sailing in the tropics. We were on the right side of a couple of these, but also on the wrong side of a couple, which has seen us lose some ground to the east, with some of the other boats sneaking past us. Sailing in the low latitudes often involves very localised weather, with boats only a handful of miles apart, having very different wind directions and speeds, which can, and does, lead to miles being won and lost very quickly.
The weather forecast indicates that the breeze should be filling in from the east, and with our position to leeward of most of the fleet I have taken the tough decision to tack over and push east for the new breeze, this means our next few scheds are not going to be pretty as we are currently not sailing along the rhumb line, but perpendicular to it, short term loss for long term gain… hopefully!
The team are acclimatising to life in the tropics, with everyone trying all sorts to help cope with the heat. The sound of bunk fans fills both accommodation corridors, the smell of sun cream fills the air at every watch change, the on watch pray that the low side remains in the shade. With the wind light, and the boat pretty flat, the galley now presents heat as its biggest challenge. Even now, with our baking being moved to the middle of the night, to try and help manage the heat in the galley, it’s still pretty tough going for whomever is tasked with feeding the crew for the day.
Not long after sunrise this morning, while doing our deck walk another delight of tropical sailing was discovered on the foredeck, dead fish. Overnight it is not unusual for flying fish to jump up an inadvertently land on the deck and remain there until discovered in daylight. Upon the fish being discovered the on watch called out a few questions to Leg 4 crew member Mike AKA the fish finder. Two of the questions asked were: “How big is it?” and “Is it stiff?”, you can tell we have been back at sea for a little while, as without missing a beat, RTW crew Rachel called out: “That's what she said!” I'd be lying if I said the whole of the on watch didn't end up much amused by the observations of our professional vet. As you can tell, we currently have an incredibly complex sense of humour running on board among the crew.
The wind has just shifted, time for another manoeuvre, so I'm back up to the deck.
Black Betty OUT!