ParaHandy
Well-Known Member
they certainly passed this boat Per Mare and they might be having a ball if the previous owner left anything behind ... looking forward to Stingo catching a fish
Mojomo #5
10:00 GMT position 23deg 11 N 30deg 59 W. wind calmer F4 ESE now and overnight. We left full sail up last night.
Last 24 hours we've done just over 200 nm towards St Lucia, so on target hours to St Lucia, so another 9 days at this rate, praps early 13th. I told the crew that swmbo arrives 13th so best get there asap to save a zillion quid in hotel bills.
The red mist has descended as everyone has learned how to use the autopilot and chartplotter. 2000 miles in ten days means 200 miles in 24 hours, 100 every 12 hours, 25 nm every watch OR ELSE. No pressure, then. Yesterday we were doing about 9 knot and a boat appeared behind us! So, engines on and we ran away at 13knots.
Keith is our Director of Food. I gottim to show me how to make cheese sauce yesterday, which was excellent. I then mused about making corned beef hash for tea, but by the time I had got back to the galley he'd almost finished making a beef goulash. Professional cooks make it all seem so easy. There again, he doesn't much trust me since the last time I was on cooking duty - I got a chicken he had left out for defrosting and innocently began to reel in a fishing line and made as though I was going to use it as bait. He ripped it out of my hands at the last minute and ran off to cook it.
Stingo is in good form and has evidently got very clued up about this long distance cruising. He's planning to take his own catamaran singlehanded around the Indian ocean, and it was actally Stingo who put me on to the idea of a catamaran a few years ago. Essentialy the stability at anchor and space outweigh the so-so handling characteristics for those cruise over a few months - but actually only sal one day in seven. Stingo has shown us the EyeSpy trick to scan the horizon - even towards the sun - by making a small hole with your hand to look through, sort of like a telescope. He also came up with the Teatowel Navigation system, whereby you reduce the glare from your dodgy chartplotter (can't use the dimmer) using a teatowel and only look at t now and again. But he has learned some interesting tips from me too. Yesterday I solved the problem of bashing my feet on the way through the patio doors by putting a lengthways-sliced piece of hosepipe over the offending threshold rail, and he instantly demanded that I grant
him a licence to use the idea. I also let him use the idea of imposing a boat rule of only making hot drinks in the sink to avoid injuries with boiling water.
Stingo is against the generally accepted rule of using harnesses all the time. Yeah, he'll use one if on a difficult foredeck in rough seas, but for a quick skip to the foredeck to tighten a line we put deck lights on and get it done in half the time. He suggests that harnesses might well save a catastrophe but are much more likely to cause an accident with trips and falls. They might also increase anxiety levels about going on the foredeck at all. However, we each have a powerful strobe armstrap so anyone overboard can be found, and anyone on watch wears the personal epirb too. This way if Stingo falls off at night I can just make a single call to Falmouth coastguard and tellem that the recent alarm is for real, so they
can nip over and gettim, can't miss him with his strobe light, lurid sailing pants and t-shirt that says "Don't tie me down, man".
Pat and I were having a chat earlier around dawn, sneakily taking pictures (technically not banned like sunset pix) and for no reason at all I asked if she was religious. "Actually, I'm a Lay Minister" she says. Jesus! I mean er oops, er gosh. I wasn't expecting this additional string to her bow. But it's good really, innit? I mean, at least God's on our side? "Well, he's on my side a least" says Pat. Oh right, thanks very much.
I must say that if Ihad known about her chumminess with the Almighty I might
not have run the "Skipper and First Mate Apparently Disappear Overboard"
gag, yet another pearl from the book "How To Be The Nastiest Skipper in the
World". We told Keith we would hide in the engineroom, and he should then
get Pat out of her cabin (second day out in the Atlantic) and ask if she had
seen them. Keith is an excellent actor. We heard muffled squawks from Pat
and thumping as she ran around the cabins. Then, we crawled through the
engineroom and escaped up into Stingo's cabin, on to the forward cabin and
out on to the foredeck. Thus when Keith capitulated (Pat asked he make a
Mayday) and "showed" we were in the enginerooom .he's just proved that he
didn't know where we were either. Not sure what the exercise shows other
than Stingo and I are deeply unpleasant people and not to be trusted very
far at all. Sorry Pat, and thanks for not getting your Mate to strike us
down just yet.
Mojomo #5
10:00 GMT position 23deg 11 N 30deg 59 W. wind calmer F4 ESE now and overnight. We left full sail up last night.
Last 24 hours we've done just over 200 nm towards St Lucia, so on target hours to St Lucia, so another 9 days at this rate, praps early 13th. I told the crew that swmbo arrives 13th so best get there asap to save a zillion quid in hotel bills.
The red mist has descended as everyone has learned how to use the autopilot and chartplotter. 2000 miles in ten days means 200 miles in 24 hours, 100 every 12 hours, 25 nm every watch OR ELSE. No pressure, then. Yesterday we were doing about 9 knot and a boat appeared behind us! So, engines on and we ran away at 13knots.
Keith is our Director of Food. I gottim to show me how to make cheese sauce yesterday, which was excellent. I then mused about making corned beef hash for tea, but by the time I had got back to the galley he'd almost finished making a beef goulash. Professional cooks make it all seem so easy. There again, he doesn't much trust me since the last time I was on cooking duty - I got a chicken he had left out for defrosting and innocently began to reel in a fishing line and made as though I was going to use it as bait. He ripped it out of my hands at the last minute and ran off to cook it.
Stingo is in good form and has evidently got very clued up about this long distance cruising. He's planning to take his own catamaran singlehanded around the Indian ocean, and it was actally Stingo who put me on to the idea of a catamaran a few years ago. Essentialy the stability at anchor and space outweigh the so-so handling characteristics for those cruise over a few months - but actually only sal one day in seven. Stingo has shown us the EyeSpy trick to scan the horizon - even towards the sun - by making a small hole with your hand to look through, sort of like a telescope. He also came up with the Teatowel Navigation system, whereby you reduce the glare from your dodgy chartplotter (can't use the dimmer) using a teatowel and only look at t now and again. But he has learned some interesting tips from me too. Yesterday I solved the problem of bashing my feet on the way through the patio doors by putting a lengthways-sliced piece of hosepipe over the offending threshold rail, and he instantly demanded that I grant
him a licence to use the idea. I also let him use the idea of imposing a boat rule of only making hot drinks in the sink to avoid injuries with boiling water.
Stingo is against the generally accepted rule of using harnesses all the time. Yeah, he'll use one if on a difficult foredeck in rough seas, but for a quick skip to the foredeck to tighten a line we put deck lights on and get it done in half the time. He suggests that harnesses might well save a catastrophe but are much more likely to cause an accident with trips and falls. They might also increase anxiety levels about going on the foredeck at all. However, we each have a powerful strobe armstrap so anyone overboard can be found, and anyone on watch wears the personal epirb too. This way if Stingo falls off at night I can just make a single call to Falmouth coastguard and tellem that the recent alarm is for real, so they
can nip over and gettim, can't miss him with his strobe light, lurid sailing pants and t-shirt that says "Don't tie me down, man".
Pat and I were having a chat earlier around dawn, sneakily taking pictures (technically not banned like sunset pix) and for no reason at all I asked if she was religious. "Actually, I'm a Lay Minister" she says. Jesus! I mean er oops, er gosh. I wasn't expecting this additional string to her bow. But it's good really, innit? I mean, at least God's on our side? "Well, he's on my side a least" says Pat. Oh right, thanks very much.
I must say that if Ihad known about her chumminess with the Almighty I might
not have run the "Skipper and First Mate Apparently Disappear Overboard"
gag, yet another pearl from the book "How To Be The Nastiest Skipper in the
World". We told Keith we would hide in the engineroom, and he should then
get Pat out of her cabin (second day out in the Atlantic) and ask if she had
seen them. Keith is an excellent actor. We heard muffled squawks from Pat
and thumping as she ran around the cabins. Then, we crawled through the
engineroom and escaped up into Stingo's cabin, on to the forward cabin and
out on to the foredeck. Thus when Keith capitulated (Pat asked he make a
Mayday) and "showed" we were in the enginerooom .he's just proved that he
didn't know where we were either. Not sure what the exercise shows other
than Stingo and I are deeply unpleasant people and not to be trusted very
far at all. Sorry Pat, and thanks for not getting your Mate to strike us
down just yet.
