For Berrimilla's first circumnavigation, the International Space Station
and the North West Passage, go to www.berrimilla.com
and www.berrimilla.com/tng

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Latest position image

Finger trouble

Or clammy mushy brain - averaging nearly 140 miles/day...

Huge container ship passing us at half a mile.

First attempt at video of waves a disaster - need more practice. Matt, all cameras and this laptop on UTC

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4025N 01002W 674 miles

What a night! gusty 30 - 35 kts and big following sea. About 15 ships overtook us, some very close indeed. Big waves seem to come in groups of about 5 or 6 very closely spaced very steep faced 5ish metre waves with the first one breaking and the next about to break. Because we are going much more slowly than the waves, Berri rides up them, in effect, backwards and they tower above her stern and then she slides over the top, more or less straight and meets the second. If the second one breaks, it's the one that usually makes things difficult and slews the stern around and confuses poor old Kevvo with a false apparent wind. There's a long express train roar and the cockpit is obliterated by rushing crashing water - and so it goes for the rest of the wave train. But at night, with phosphorescence it's magnificent - and scary - it's like surfing down the face of a giant living boiling neon tube. Sometimes with an incandescent rooster tail from the bow to the cockpit. All under a lovely clear sky with the waning crescent moon and Venus at about 15 deg on the E horizon, Orion high above Sirius to the S and the Great Bear and the Pole to the N. For the first time I can remember, I watched the Great Bear turn its half circle and end up upside down...

We're averaging nearly 170 miles a day - huge for Berri but when you consider that the 24 hr record is now about 900 miles, rather ordinary by world standards! Wind due to ease a bit today so perhaps 2 days to C. St Vincent and 2 more to Gib

Impossible to keep the inside dry in these conditions - we have the storm boards in, but at every watch change we bring in litres of water on our gear and B is so small there's nowhere to isolate this from the rest of the boat. So everything is clammy. Erk!

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The Examiner getting back into practice

4133N 01009W

Hoofing it down the coast, ships everywhere and the waves are so big you often don't see the ships until they are only a mile or so away, by which time we fervently hope they have seen us on radar - I bought the best reflector I could afford...

Steady 25+ knots. Waves building for 36 hours - mostly ok but every 100th or so wave we get a train of four or five massive steepies very closely together. Heady rolled in to half storm jib size and still surfing at 6+ with several of the biggies breaking into the cockpit and half filling it. Trying to keep everything dry below.

Due for at least another 18 hours of this. Prob 5 or 6 days to Gib all going well.

Pete on watch in the cockpit - has to be someone there all the time for the ships - I've just done double egg and bacon and tomato sandos with a pre prandial Discussion with Mr Gydrin. Noice.

Time for a couple of hours ensac.

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