Day 1
Thursday 3rd December 2015
Positions 25°57'S 13°59'E
8.50am
Well I'm kinda on another watch, I say kinda because daytime is anyones, but I'm sitting on the chart plotter side so I guess it's me, I actually prefer to sit on this side, as I'm uphill a bit.
We have had 3 ships pass us this morning and one is in front of us at the moment, it's about 4 nm ahead called MSC Charleston, it's from Germany heading for Togo in Africa.
We are actually sailing at the moment, if you can call it that, we have only 4 knts of wind but have three sails out.
Sometime in the early hours of this morning The Captain got the first sail out the Yankee , ( little one at the front) and switched off the engine, it was great not to hear it running that's for sure, but man have we rolled from side to side since then, I had a shocking sleep.
When I surfaced this morning we managed to get the rest of the sails out, as we had about 13knts of wind then, I looked up at our main sail and could see a dark mark on it, on closer inspection we realised it was a small hole, great.
So The Captain gets his harness on climbs up the rat lines in the middle of the ocean and sticks a patch on it.
Now these are suppose to stick really good and it did for an hour....haha
So plan B climb back up the rat lines and put another patch on, Plan C stick one on the other side with a broom handle and holding it with Blu Tact until we could get it up there and in place, ( my idea.) Plan D, The Captain standing on the boom trying to reach it, ( not a good idea) but we went with Plan E, we just rolled the sail in until it was back inside the furler, it only had to go in a foot or so.
Why are we worried about such a little hole, well if the wind picks up it can turn into a massive ripped sail, in a few seconds.
11.30pm
Still on my watch, there is no moon the seas are settled, we have about 13 kts of wind and all is kinda ok.
This afternoon the wind picked up, I was having an afternoon nap and when I woke up we were flying, the wind was around 20 kts and we were doing well over 6Kts.
The only problem was that the sea had picked up as well, we were rocking and rolling everywhere.
I had my first bout of serious seasickness then, I went down to make dinner and man the movement was crazy.
I was very green for awhile, I tell you, but now the wind and movement has settled I am fine again.
We have another problem on the boat, there is a timber bearer that holds the shaft in place, well it has broken.
What I can gather from The Captain is, the shaft passes through this and holds everything in place, we have noticed a kinda knocking rubbing noise from day one and really didn't think too much about it, until today when The Captain decided to go explore and work out where it was coming from.
After much discussion we have three choices, we go back to Luderitz and see if we can get it repaired, go to Walvis Bay which is still in Namibia, or keep sailing to St Helena and get it fixed there.
We have decided to give it 48 hours and see if anything worse happens to it, we have decided that going back to Luderitz is a no go, so we will wait and see.
Well tomorrow is anther day.