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| Varuna: Flappy sails are No happy sails |
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night. The North Atlantic shows his calm side. Very light wind and the swell from the last days with wind. The sound of the flapping sails is a very intense and loud sound. You can see it in the boys eyes on deck, it hurts. Sometimes 0,00 knots of boat speed, no progress towards Lizard Point. Frustration. Sometime you can hear the boys swearing...haughhhhhhhhh.... what the hell is going on here.... we don't deserve that.... Although we enjoy our time on board we are looking forward to the finish. The boys on SHAKTI allways on our stern makes the boys fight hard. A few hours ago they tacked away and now we are on seperated tacks, everybody trying out his strategy and his luck. Sailing at night in this very light stuff is close to gambling. Who ever catches the wind first is gone. The one behind sees him sailing away to then catch the wind and eat up the separating miles. The one in front gets to the light winds ahead first and the one behind comes close again with the old wind. We use to say: The second mouse gets the cheese. This is an ongoing game. You need strong nerves to play it. Especially the helmsmen. With no boat speed the boat does not give him any feedback on the rudder. Driving in these conditions is sometimes like stiring the ocean, trying at least to keep the bow in the right direction. At the moment we are doing around 7knots, going in the right direction. The routing says this weather will stay the same until the finish.... bye bye fast downwind sailing at high speed. We are allready missing the spray flying over deck and the sound of the sheets on the winches. These conditions make life easier on board and are part of offshore sailing as the heavy weather is. It's a misterium, you are allways looking for the opposite. But, allways remember, we can not complain. So far we had a very fast and easy trip. Thats at least what the North Atlantic veterans on board say... |
