Monday 2nd to Tuesday 3rd January 2017
We heard that one of the yachts in the 2nd start, Black Pearl, shot out of Cape Town like a champagne cork, doing over 20 knots. Considering we were only doing an average of 6-7 knots we would be needing to look over our shoulders quite soon. In a following swell we were sometimes momentarily achieving up to 14 knots of speed as the boat surfed down the waves. Every time the boat accelerated down a wave the propeller spun furiously in the water, setting up a very reassuring purr to indicate that we were going at quite a nice pace. Strangely, on occasion we would also temporarily experience another type of judder at a certain speed and couldn’t work out what caused it.
Although we had been experiencing nice sunsets each day up until now with the old adage of red sky at night, sailors (or shepherd’s) delight holding true as good weather prevailed the following day each time, we were now missing such a sunset for the first time. The red sky is due to dust in dry conditions in the in the atmosphere being lit up by the setting sun in the west, and as weather systems move across the earth in a westerly direction this would then mean this dry weather was to follow. The converse is also true in that the red sky in the morning meant that this dry weather had passed and wet weather was to follow. The fact that there was a new moon also indicated that our weather was about to change as this is usually the case with new and full moons as they influence the pressure systems with their gravitational forces. And indeed, we did get foul weather. It was a very bumpy night with the odd crew member succumbing to seasickness again and most of us getting very little sleep as the swell picked up and wrenched the boat around in very confused seas. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) identified a cable laying ship dead ahead of us and sure enough about 15 minutes later it came into view and slipped past us about a mile off our port side, doing 15 knots.
Fortunately, we were still on the wind, as predicted by the GRIB files and had about 15 knots of breeze off our port stern, gusting to up to 30 knots, when we had to reef both the genoa and mainsail by 2 reefs each. The good winds were allowing us to make up for the half day we spent doing only a knot or two a couple of days ago when the high pressure enveloped us. We were now only 56 miles short of our targeted 150 miles a day, which we had been achieving for a full week now. We were still needing to keep a heading of about 300 degrees to climb above Rio which at 23 degrees was 2 degrees above our current latitude of 25 degrees south and we had to come down into Rio to skirt the top of the high pressure system which would no doubt be looming there when we eventually arrived at that latitude. We were also hoping to take advantage of any Katabatic land-sea breezes off the coast of Brazil that would give us some lift, should the high pressure try and sit over our path. Barreling along at close to 7 knots put the kibosh on any fishing activities because even if we did manage to hook something we were unlikely to land it on the stern at such a speed. A lure did hook something a while later – Grant’s foot as he stood on it while coming on watch from his cabin after the tray of lures had been jettisoned out of its locker onto the floor and burst open. Fortunately little damage was done and a healthy smear of antibacterial ointment to injuries such as this and stubbed toes among the crew saw them heal very quickly.
For supper we had one of Grant’s brother- in-law’s, Robin’s, pre-prepared butter bean curry with creamed spinach that had been vacuum packed and kept at the bottom of the fridge. The meal lifted everyone’s spirits, speaking of which Rory claimed to have seen a little man sitting on the stern pushpit later that night while he was on watch and unaware of this Grant had also pointed out a ghost to Albie that was leaning over his bed while they were on watch in the early hours of the morning and had waved to her. Albie didn’t see what Grant saw and maybe the two skippers were hallucinating with tiredness as they tended to have very sleepless nights when conditions were rough, popping their heads up out of the stern hatch from time to time to remind those on watch to be ready to smoke a guy or reef and trim sails to stabilise the boat in strong gusts. The skippers considered that he youngsters had a tendency to be cowboys at the helm if unchecked, proudly announcing what speed they had just managed to attain while the boat precariously weaved her way down the swells. One of the crew members on a previous Cape to Rio race on the yacht in 2000 claimed to have seen a female ghost in the aft cabin who had apparently told her that she had drowned at sea some time ago when the tall ship she was travelling on was wrecked in a storm and that she came to make sure the crew on other vessels were all well, tucking them in at night.
We had delicious pancakes and beer bread cooked by Ash and Jarrod for lunch the next day and realized how important our meals were to us on this crossing, often planning what to cook many hours in advance.