Trucial Coast, Day 16 - best day yet
Andrew Hunt December 10th, 2007
Well yesterday was everything that the ARC is supposed to be about! After the poor start which I mentioned, things really brightened up. We had a whole day of sunshine, no rain that I know of, and were able to dry off our kit, open up the hatches and get lots of fresh air down below and generally enjoy the sailing. Not long after posting yesterday’s log we had a close encounter with an oil tanker: not one of the biggest of the breed but at 0.5 nm away it was still too large to fit into the frame of my zoom lens! We had a brief radio chat with her - initiated by us wanting to make sure they’d seen us, and continued by them to find what on earth we were doing sailing across the Atlantic.
But perhaps the greatest excitement of the day (maybe even the trip, but I’m biased) came at about 1730 when our fishing gear came good and I managed to land what we now believe to be a dorado. Having suffered the indignity of being trailed behind the boat at 7 knots for a while before I noticed it, it was then hauled onto the boat, dumped on our “Welcome On Board” mat that sits at the stern of the cockpit and had Turkish Cin poured into its gills! There are many ways to die but drowning in the Turkish (very very rough) approximation of gin is one of the more unusual… Consider that this bottle of Cin had survived on board this vessel for about 5 years and you get an idea of just how bad it is!
When reading the logs of previous ARC participants to get some thoughts on what lay in store for me, the debate of how best to dispatch fish raged large across the logs (and the ARC participants forum). Alcohol into the gills is dogmatically held by some as by far and away the best method, but others remain equally convinced of its ineffectiveness. Well, it worked for us and our fish expired with the minimum of fuss, and (I like to think) visions of long Turkish evenings propping up bars with no prospect of a hangover in its eyes.
What followed next could hardly be described as the minimum of fuss as I think I’m the only one on board who has gutted a fish before, only once, and it was a teeny trout, not a 2 foot ocean-going dorado. But I managed to get it gutted and (thanks to Rob’s new-found friends on the radio net, Blue Flier and Burnadebt) skinned before cutting four very decent sized fillets off it. Ann then rounded off the job superbly by battering and frying it for what turned out to be a very late supper, but also the first time we all sat round a table and ate in civilised fashion on the trip.
As we were preparing the fish we were also treated to a fantastic sunset, so all in all it was a very fitting way to see off what we all fervently hope was the worst bit of the crossing. That area of nasty weather we’ve been locked in for several days is absolutely vast, its southern edge is several hundred miles long, and it has hit much of the fleet. It was pretty serious stuff - there have been large numbers of ships reporting broken booms and other fittings, as well as several broken spinnaker poles. One boat reported a gust of 83 knots, which is just incredible. Not surprisingly this broke his spinnaker pole and ripped the track attaching it to the mast right out of the mast. I don’t know what he was flying on the pole at the time, but frankly it could have been a handkerchief and 83 knots would still have done the damage. More seriously there have been two abandonments, one of a dismasted boat that sent out a mayday and another of a boat which had steering failure - this abandonment was carried out under controlled circumstances. Everyone was safely rescued from both. So it has been a bit hairy out here and I’m very glad we’re out of the southern edge of the heavy weather now.
The forecast is for good steady winds now and decent weather (with occasional showers) all the way to St Lucia (although there may be some grotty weather on our final day). We’re also getting pretty close now - 611 nm DTF. However, Rob is rightly urging us not to get sloppy or lose focus. There are still thundery squalls out there that could cause damage and we are still several days out, so we remain vigilant! You’ll doubtless be pleased to know that at great personal cost, Rob sorted out the aft head and identified (he thinks) the problem with the forward head, which can be fixed in calmer water (personally I think he’ll have to wait till Rodney Bay for that!). So we at least have a partial paddle with which to effect creek escape. I’m not 100% sure what the freezer situation is, but I think Ann has been frantically cooking up anything that’s defrosted so it can keep another couple of days in the fridge. Otherwise we’re reliant on tins, and my fishing skills (one catch in 15 days, not such a great return….). We’ve got a few showers around today, but thus far nothing too bad, so we continue our progress to St Lucia. By the time I post the log tomorrow, we’ll be down under 500 nm DTF (insh’allah!) and I will probably be turning my thoughts to “Things I Will Do On Arrival”. I’m sure most of them will be easy enough to guess!
- General , Sail Race ARC , Staff Travels
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