Freebird Atlantic

It all seems to happen at night.  2 nights ago while William was on watch at 3am, there was an almighty thud on the starboard side of the hull.  He quickly put a torch to the sea on the stern, but could see nothing.  We believe it was a turtle as we have seen them occasionally on the surface.  Less romantically, perhaps a drifting log!

Then this morning as I came on watch at sunrise, I found a dead fish on the floor of the cockpit.  It is similar in size to a large sardine, and obviously a flying fish that was attracted to our cockpit lights in the night.  I have just gutted it and we will have fish and fried eggs for breakfast.

We were flying along through the night at speeds between 8-9 knots, so I certainly enjoyed a roller coaster in the fore-peak.

We continue to head slightly south of west, partly to keep the sails full on a goose-wing, but also because William can see on his GRIB charts that the wind is lighter just north of us.  So we are having a rollicking sail, but at the expense of a longer course.  I think the crew are happy about that, but we are aware that our shore crew in Antigua await us, so we are sailing as fast as possible.

We continue to have a problem updating our track, on Snaptrack blog but we hope the IT department will sort it out by tomorrow's blog by liaising with our sat phone provider who are based in Seattle.  Our position for those interested is 18.48.077N and 32.49.690W, which is about 460m WNW of the most NW Cape Verde island.

For those sailors amongst you, a ew words about our safety regime.  The rule is that everyone wears an AIS device round their necks at all times on deck.   An AIS device, when activated, would show the position on our chartplotter screen of that person in the water, if, heaven forbid, they went over.  Lifejackets are to be worn if the spinnaker is hoisted (things happen quickly with a spinnaker) or if we have taken a reef in rough weather, which has only happened once so far during our thunderstorm night. If anyone leaves the cockpit, a lifeline is worn at ALL times.  At night, the person on watch wears an AIS device and lifejacket and clips on.  Additional safety precautions involve checks on the boat every day.  These cover the rigging (both standing and running), sails, shackles, generator and engine.

The sun continues to shine and the temperature continues to rise.  We started this trip needing 3 layers of warm clothing, and a warm hat,  on the night watch with the sea temperature of 67F. 9 days on it is very much warmer.  The sea temperature has risen to 76F, everyone is doing their night watch in shorts, and it is almost too hot by day.  William is resisting us using the bimini because it is difficult to roll in a big sea, but the crew might win their wicked way today.  Talking of the sea, it is quite rolly.  The wave height is about 2 metres, but as the length of each wave is wide giving a gradual rise and fall, so it does not seem rough.

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