Race 2 - Day 5
Skipper Report
20 September
We have just gybed again…
Three reasons for gybing:
1: The Timezero computer programme recommended it
2: Wavy and his team aboard GoToBermuda just gybed in front of us
3: The 187m long cargo ship, Aruna Ece, was heading directly for us at 11 knots
An hour ago I heard WTC Logistics talking to the Aruna Ece on the radio and I didn't have the heart to ask the captain to alter course for a second time so soon. In any case, his ship is bigger than our boat. And at least we now know exactly where WTC Logistics is.
Having said that, we did gybe at midnight when the captain of another ship, the Navigator Taurus, asked us what our intentions were. I got the hint. It gets quite busy out here at times…
Other than that, what else has happened during the last 24 hours?
A bit of drama when the tack stop broke on the spinnaker. Had to take the spinnaker down in a hurry, sort it out and re-hoist. Very good achievement by the team.
There has been a lot of wildlife around. We saw hundreds, if not thousands, of dolphins during the day. A whale also passed close by on the surface, spouting from time to time.
And we saw vast numbers of Cory's shearwaters. These birds breed in huge colonies on the Salvage Islands, a small group of uninhabited islands north of the Canaries. Around this time of year many of them will migrate to the South Atlantic, and so we might see some of the very same birds off Cape Town in a couple of months!
And we have begun to see our first few flying fish. Once we reach the Tropics, we can expect to see them constantly but in these more northern waters they are few and far between.
At sunset we could clearly see Fuerteventura, the south easternmost of the Canary Islands, about 20 nautical miles off our starboard side.
Soon after sunset the padeye holding the vang to the deck broke with a loud bang, which woke everybody up. James Finney and David Fortune soon had a jury rigged system up and running, and we lost no time due to the occurence.
Cheers,
Nick