Archives by: JML Rotary Scout

Delivery day 9 S 29°02.102’ W 007°53.812’ The whole crew has been making an effort to keep a straight line due south, as we have discovered we are sitting in between two high pressure systems. This means that our weather is good but the window is fairly small. Sailing is pretty comfortable, with fairly consistent wind- coming from behind us. It’s still warm, but the intensity of the previous heat is gone and we’ve had a few light showers. This has ... Read more

Delivery blog 8 S 26°53.086 W 008°14.535 We have all been enjoying hearty meals and have been having good fun working on our tans, but we now (with eager anticipation) prepare for more wind heading our way, according to the grib files. Rob managed to do a good job repairing the spinnaker pole, and we are also keen to see how well it works. While Tyla was catching up on sleep in the afternoon, some of the crew members decided to have ... Read more

Delivery day 7 S 25°06.503’ W 008°03.225’ Rob has thrown himself wholeheartedly at the task of fixing the spinnaker pole, come part time bowsprit. He spent his day hard at work cutting, shaping and working on the aluminium. Long hours he spent wishing for a little on-board workshop, instead of the seemingly stone-age hand saws, drills and files. All this work is not wasted though, as we have plenty of time, and the pole is coming along nicely. A lot of ... Read more

Delivery Day 6 S 23°43.954’ W 007°35.187’ After a hot and peaceful day (due to lack of loud motor noise), we all - even Peter - had a really refreshing swim in the clear, still water - made even more so with the discovery of a pair of snorkel goggles! We all had great fun watching a tiny stripy fish swim in the shadow of the boat, and the chilled and tanned for the remainder of the day. The crew’s spirits have ... Read more

Delivery day 5 Position: S 23deg 16min 670sec W 007deg 16min 560sec We know the tracker isn’t working well, so we’re adding co-ordinates to the blog. The ocean is full of good times… some of the crew spent the day lamming in the hot sun and thinking about them. Kerryn, fuelled by plenty of Game, decided the bananas were not worth eating, and made a banana bread to be eaten as dessert. Still having energy, she made pasta to go with the blue-fin tuna ... Read more

Delivery day 4 We caught a number of decent sized fish, but much to the regret of Rob, Harry and Stan, most of said fish managed to free themselves from the lures. In the end however, we had some lovely braai’d dorado and tuna for dinner with mash and fresh tomato, and the crew all thoroughly enjoyed it. Tyla got a tiny bit sunburnt on her face from falling asleep in a weird position, so when her shift came she was all ready, ... Read more

Delivery day 3 Supper on the 25th was a bit more adventurous than canned food… Kerryn made potato salad and pan-fried chicken pieces. Rob decided it was time to open the ice-cream tub of chillies from St Helena, and made us a chilli sauce. This chilli sauce was not for the faint of heart… the chillies were jam-packed full of seeds, so the hot chicken was indeed rather hot, but very tasty nonetheless. We have found making hot beverages with the tilt ... Read more

Delivery Day 2 After much effort and resources being put into fixing the motor, we put in the inline pump and were finally were able to set sail! This was much to the crews joy, despite their sea legs being not entirely in place, and at 20:00 CAT we set sail and were happily cruising along at up to 8 knots of wind! For supper we had some chakalaka and rice, and spent the night getting into our new watches - Peter ... Read more

Delivery day 1 The race crew is now safely back in South Africa, and the new crew arrived on St Helena shortly before we did. Everyone enjoyed their stay on the island, the Saints are so friendly, and really just lovely people. Our respective hosts were great people and very accommodating it was difficult to leave. I can assure you not one of us will forget this visit. On the 22nd, the new crew moved onto the boat, expecting to leave that ... Read more