Fingernails - in at least 2 episodes

0700/15th position 2255 02129 trip 5247=87/24 Cape Town 2190 This post started yesterday afternoon.

Seems we might just have hooked our fingernails into the top of the low hoofing east below us and we're hanging on as best we can - wind dropping and fickle, twin poled and rolling in the swell. If we can hold on to it - lucky - and we look good for tomorrow as well, then a bloody great hole for a day and then the next low. They are further north than I expected which seems to be a bit of a helping hand. We'll see - we still have to get ourselves 600 miles south across their paths and the second one has attitude.

Hot and tedious out here. Another 45 miles south and we're out of the tropics - hoooley doooley. Then the difficult bit starts. But those 45 miles are not going to be easy either.

We've been playing with the sextant - or Pete has and I've done the Merlin bit - but at civil twilight I'm going out to see whether I can grab Jupiter to add to Pete's earlier sun sight. Lots of fluffy cu so may be difficult.

Later - Jupiter was difficult - but got something else yet to identify. Possibly Achernar but the sight may not be good enough to decide. And then remembered that we need a current almanac to reduce planet sights so no Jupiter anyway. Cape Town perhaps.

Later still - middle watch again - I can't remember ever seeing stars in the night sky from horizon to horizon - there's always a layer of haze low down and cloud somewhere. Tonight is almost Khayyam's Bowl of Night - a little thickening of the density to the north and the stars don't quite make it through but a soft transition from the reflected starlight and phosphorescent twinkles on the water to the real thing above everywhere else - Jupiter in the west with a brilliant trail over the water like one of those christmas cards of the three kings following their star. I sit in the cockpit, chin resting on a winch, Berri in gentle shooshle with the gap between the big dark triangles of the poled out headsails rolling its arc from Rigel through Sirius past Canopus. The gas cloud is a bright fuzz almost to Achernar. The Cross just above the horizon. I will remember these nights as long as my three neurons continue to converse through their torpid synapse. Clear, awesome, overpowering wonder at the beauty of it all and my own insignificance. I'm just a few gerzillion organic molecules soon to be dispersed again along with their momentary cohesion of consciousness, my track through spacetime infinitesimally tiny and irrelevant.

We're not really in the complicated system to the south - the fingernails scraped along the turbulence and lost it so we're just trickling along in the swirls of soft breeze stirred up by its passage. Tomorrow will be a hole but there's a chance that the next low - the serious one - will give us a boost as it rolls past us. It has at least 50 knots close to its centre about 900 miles to the south. I hope Groupama hooked into it and are riding their slingshot eastwards.

I'll send this with the 0700 position to save on iridium. Steve W has gone bush for the w/e probably with no mobile signal so we won't get any mail until at least then anyway.

Henry's Place; Berri's position

Posted by I and G in the UK

Henry Knight

For those new to Berrimilla's voyages, here is an explanation about Henry Knight. In the 2005 round-the-world trip, Alex and Pete passed close to where a young boy called Henry Knight died in 1853 and was buried at sea. He was emigrating to Australia from England with his family.

The co-ordinates for the sea burial were given as 2835 S, 02609 W. The story about the Knight family was passed to Alex by a friend who was a descendant of Henry's father.  This friend gave permission to quote online from the diary of the voyage, which is now housed in the Mitchell Library in Sydney. I read a transcript of the diary when Alex was in the UK back in 2005 and it was a harrowing and moving account of a most appalling journey.  Many passengers died on the voyage due to illness, malnutrition or starvation. If I remember correctly this was in part due to the fact that the provisions they had paid for were not made available to them on board. 

The extract copied below was publshed in the 2005 blog on 29th September as entry 392.   You can access it in its proper context here:

http://www.berrimilla.com/log/TheLog22.htm

5th February 1853

 5Fine day very Hot Calm Henry very/ Ill could not take but very little Susan A little better betwixed 8 and 9 O'Clock/ Henry went down stair's took A Counterpane down with him that he had/ been laying on all day previous to this he had been to the Closet but once all day/ as soon as he got down to our Berth he started to the Closet I followed after him was/ in the Closet with him we talked together a good bit I then went up on the upper/ Deck same time Henry went down I stayed a short time up on Deck because my/  wife was washing the children and she could do better with the little Girl when I was/ out of sight as she used to cry after me, mean time Henry had gone to the Closet/ again and for the last time he was heard to groan but no one it appears Knew what/ it was or who it was he had fasten himself in the Closet with the Hasp as was the / way of most of the  Emigrants and therefore could not be got at under 15 or/ 20 Minutes no one had  suspected a death had taken place untill the Door was opened/ but so it was poor fellow he was quite dead sitting on the seat & perhaps my/ friends can be a better judge what my feelings were than I can express I took/ George to see him after he had been carried into the Hospital which was the place/ where all the Dead were taken poor fellow he wept over him most bitterly nor/ was he the only one that wept for none of us expected/ all this

 

Posted by Iz in the UK

Henry

At 0905 UTC we launched Henry's little box at 22.26.1 S 022.44.5 W with instructions to the hairy old fart with the trident to ensure that it gets delivered by his favourite mermaid. Jelly snakes, jelly beans and chocolate tied with red and green ribbon from Isbella and sealed with gaffer tape. As you do. Onya Henry!

Then I put my pot of contemplating Murph on the cockpit seat and Berri rolled and wallowed and - SPBF - another dent in the pot and only a mouthful of the stuff left. Serves me right - how long have I been out here??

Still in wallow mode, giving the red sail its first southern hemisphere outing. Twin poled at about 2.5 knots dragging our barnacle colony along for the ride and to get fat. Maybe not for long. If the wind drops, we're over the side with a knife.

Norm wrote about all the named corners in Australia where the State boundaries meet - Doeppels, Surveyor Generals etc. - and noted that there is no name for the point where the Greenwich Meridian crosses the equator and did I have any suggestions? Best I can do Norm is Pi for Primary Intersection, AntiPi on the Date Line? Or perhaps Mercator Central which it wasn't when he was alive but now is on most Mercator world charts. Pathetic really, but the best I can do.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Henry's day abd a big thank you

0700/19th position 2221 02252 trip 98/24 Little bit of breeze and creeping along.

Whoever might have been out there during the night isn't there now. We will send Henry's box off downwind at 0900 and contemplate over a refrigerated Murph. We are 400 miles from him this time but it will get there - why else do we placate the old fart with a trident?

Cloud to the SW could be the top of the first low - hope so but we are still a bit far to the north. Watch and wait seems to be the go.

C. - Isabella told us about your very generous donation towards the iridium bill. Thank you! Very much appreciated.

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Berriwallow

Middle watch - Berri rolling gently in the swell - quiet shhsssh sshoossshh of the water slipping past the substantial colony of barnacles along the starboard side - stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae in their gigazillions in an almost luminescent sky - poled out on the port tack in wallow mode, main slatting uncomfortably and may have to drop it and get the red sail out, just shooshling (Kimbra's NE Passage word?) along at about 3 knots - NE swell and about 8 knots of breeze. Will be a couple of days before we know whether yesterday's punt will work out or not - we are at the top of a complex series if swirling high and low pressure systems and the grib predicts that there are a couple of dominant lows to the SW. I think Groupama will be further down on the second one going like the clappers eastwards - I hope so - keep stoking the boilers guys! If we are lucky we will just sneak into the top of the first one and it might carry us into the second. But there are big holes all around so it's anybody's guess. At 0140 on the 14th, we're pointing directly at Cape Town with 2292 to go.

Meantime, sometime today we will reach our closest point to young Henry Knight who will be about 400 miles to the south. I am preparing a little box of jelly snakes and chocolate tied with Isabella's red and green ribbon to send down to him. It'll be a week or so before it gets there, Henry, and 156 years too late but it's a small tribute to you and all the others who have died out here.

Otherwise - ennui. Hot shadeless days, no other signs that humans live on the planet. And suddenly not so. I've just been up to have a squizz and there was a light on the starboard quarter. I watched it for a bit and it vanished. That doesn't happen unless the light was switched off - why? Scary these days and I'll keep the satphone handy. Time 0215/14th position 22.16.3 S 023.07.5 W COG 120M @ 3kts

SJ tks for Groupama post. G'day John McC - I remember and glad you found us again.

Colder pints or general relativity

0700/13th 2141 02432 trip 132/24 2378 to CT These positions almost always come at the end of the blog, which gets stitched together in the middle watch and sent around 0700.

We've passed the 5000 mile mark on the GPS. We haven't seen a ship, aircraft, bird or heffalump for days and days and days. Port tack since about 4 deg N.

Another of those nights in which it it impossible not to feel that one is part of the universe. Not a very big part. As I peer myopically into spacetime, there seems to be depth and perspective in the huge slice that is 'now' under an almost clear night's sky. In the hazy clarity you can see how densely packed the place is - so many tiny stars in the gaps between the big ones - Orion, for instance, could be spangles on a cobweb across the lights of a city - other galaxies, other lives? Through the binoculars just gobsmacking. And we have dinoflagellatious twinkles all around us to echo the sky. Quietly wonderful.

We've passed east of Martin Vaz - also known as Trinidade I think, though my chart doesn't say so - and we are nearly level with Rio. 2 degrees or so north of the Tropic of Capricorn - and therefore Rockhampton. About 420 miles north of where Henry Knight was buried at sea in February 1853. We will pass closer to him and we'll send him some jelly snakes in the next couple of days. 2400 to the Cape. Crossing the Atlantic Trench.

And Donald Crowhurst spent some time sailing up and down out here and is believed to have landed on Trinidade as he constructed his fictitious log in that first single handed race.

I pulled in a big grib file a few hours ago to try to get a feel for the uncoiling mess of high and low pressure systems just to the south of us and we decided to believe the predictions and take a punt. At 25.07 west, around 1900 yesterday evening we altered course towards the SE to try to stay in favourable winds and cut the corner to the Cape. We are making about 145M at the mo, so heading between Tristan and Africa. If we've got it right and it all hangs together, about three weeks to Cape Town.

We hardboiled the last of the eggs yesterday. 12 slices of bacon left - quite talkative it is too and starting to de-laminate but not at all green.

Hey Gordy - and the other seekers after the truth in the Chain Locker - sounds a bit bleak over there. Our refrigerated Murphs would be a lot warmer than a pint of Doom from the tap.

quickie

0630/12th position 1947 02454, trip 137/24, CT 2453nm.

Norm - yep, 3 x 3. Doubt whether there's a ghost but possible. Would fit with commercial aspects.
Brian, thanks - I like it too. I watched him go past at Charing X. Feb 1966 I think.
Izz - gotcha and tks for BoLpost
Hilary - good to hear. Pse tell Hillross to go ahead as per your note. SJ sent us SMH extract. Pre China hug for K. More later.

The Burning of the Leaves

Now is the time for the burning of the leaves,
They go to the fire; the nostrils prick with smoke
Wandering slowly into the weeping mist.
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves!
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin, and bites
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist.
The last hollyhock's fallen tower is dust:
All the spices of June are a bitter reek,
All the extravagant riches spent and mean.
All burns! the reddest rose is a ghost.
Spark whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild
Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.
Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,
Time for the burning of days ended and done,
Idle solace of things that have gone before,
Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there:
Let them go to the fire with never a look behind.
That world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.
They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour,
And magical scents to a wondering memory bring;
The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.
Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours.
Nothing is certain, only the certain spring.

Laurence Binyon

posted by Iz - who didn't know the poem before Alex quoted it today

Ritual again.

2000/11th 1850 02454

Armistice Day - a day of significant ritual for some. For me, it is Laurence Binyon's poetry -' and they shall not grow old as we who remember them grow old ' - hope I've got it right - and the memory of my father, who survived WW2, as a man who could not reinvent himself in his middle age and who, I now think, was sad and disillusioned. I wish I had known him better. And Dave and Mike who was in my seat and all the others I knew and trained and flew with long gone and still young in my memory.

And renewal and rebirth - Binyon again and his poem 'The burning of the leaves' - Prof, I owe you for that one. And too, your namesake and his heritage, scarred into history outside Bailliol College.

To the mundane - daily ritual list for Berri: The Murphy Consultation at breakfast, the Priming of the Fridge three times a day, the 0700 report to the blog and the expectation that there might be mail waiting as I send it, watch changes every three hours, the 1700 Consultation with Dr Grindy and dinner together. The daily walk around the deck, the routine of day after day slogging it out and watching the miles go by. Sticking ones head up and looking around the horizon for ships - and cloud formations. Gourmet cup-a-soup in the night. And just living inside ones head and remembering that, like storms, long days pass and each is its own notch in time, its half kilometre in the marathon, one that is done, gone, scored on the scratch pad of life out here.

And we're getting close to the shipping lanes out of Rio.

Highs and lows part 2

0700/11th position 1733 02456 trip 131/24 and 2524 to CT

From the cloud patterns it looks as if we are dropping into the top of the S Atlantic high. The barometer is rising and the grib, while still showing us as in the trades, has the high below us at about 25 S
As I said in the last one, below thr high you get down into the line of lows - depressions - that march across the world all year round and go all the way down to the ice at times. To be avoided unless you are deliberately looking for a slingshot into the next dimension, as Groupama will be when they get down there in a few days. Then they will start to go very fast indeed and will sustain those speeds for thousands of miles as they follow the great circle to the Horn as far down towards the ice as their data tells them is safe.
I have been in 4 really severe storms and the '98 Hobart with winds over 60 kts and at least 2 of them gusting over 80. Two were approaching Cape Horn 4 years ago and the other two were in the S Atlantic, off Montevideo and just a bit further along our current track towards Cape Town. All but the '98 Hobart (where we were just behind it) found us in the dangerous (left front) segment of one of these depressions and if you haven't experienced the ferocity of an even relatively mild 60 knot southern ocean storm it is very hard to describe - a combination of wind and huge breaking waves, gut wrenching knockdowns, the screaming of the wind in the rig, violent movement with no frame of reference and the crashing of water against, around and over the boat. Plus your own fear. Grown men have been reduced to tears - and at least one has been brave enough afterwards to make his videos public. You sustain yourself from wave to wave, knockdown to knockdown by remembering that no storm lasts for ever - they just seem to - and you have to outlast them and hope the boat is strong enough to last that long too. I seem to remember that the one we went through over here had winds over 45 knots for 9 days and we were bare poled (no sail up, trying to keep the wind and waves on the quarter and sometimes surfing at 10+ knots) for most of the time. While there's never nothing you can do, you are pretty much helpless and it feels that way. Not funny. I hope the Examiner is kinder to us this time.

David - interested. We may be in touch shortly.
Allan - more interesting than ever. I guess you have to ask how often it happens around the world and never gets reported.

The butterfly flapping

Port tack, my bunk elevated. I'm lying on my left side, elongated S shaped, back pressed into a long roll of clothing and bunny rug, itself filling the curve of the lee cloth under its aluminium support bar. My head is pillowed on my double thickness Finisterre fleece jacket on top of a scrunched pillow, locking it in place so that my neck muscles can relax, arms bent away from me trying to keep circulation unchecked. Dozy, having just come off watch in the dark and drooping for sleep. Woolworths pyjama pants (yes! and they are perfect for sleeping in the tropics) and a T shirt. Boat gently rolling and pitching. I'm conscious that - well, I'm conscious that I'm conscious, awake, and Berri, as always, is talking to me in her own special language, grammatically and syntactically unique and so dense with implied and nuanced self confirming cross reference. Tiny, irregular 'click' 'click click' continuous, barely audible yet also transmitted through the fabric around me. Sleep denied - what is it? Brain surfaces through dozy daze - first, there's none of the usual roar and clatter of Berri's passage through the Atlantic moguls - just the music of water burbling past the hull a few inches from my ear. And the undulating pitch of the wind generator in the back of the orchestra. The wind has dropped and the seas have subsided. Nice!. So...what is it? Audit and inventory of everything around me, reluctant to wake properly and find head torch. The boat feels balanced and happy, no longer thudding through the swell - so for the first time, perhaps since we left, I'm able to hear this click? Careful mental review of everything around me capable of making the sound - doesn't seem very important but I must identify it and file it so that when I hear it in future it's part of the natural background. Ahhh! There's a fire extinguisher above my feet on the bulkhead and it has a little metal label with the date of last service that is usually captured by the strap holding the extinguished into its bracket - could it have come out? I sit up, feel for the label and yep - that's it. So is the extinguisher secure? Seems ok. Uncoil back into sleeping S and let the dozy daze envelop the swede.

I think it is this flow of the subconscious, a subliminal sensing of the unfolding pattern of things that makes it so difficult for me to listen to music or to read anything more demanding than escapist whodunnitry. Each requires a level of concentration that drowns the subconscious and the subconscious keeps fighting back. It's a form of obsession but it has saved our bacon several times that were obvious and I'm absolutely sure umpteen times before they became obvious. It is aural, visual and tactile - like the aircraft pilot whose eyes see broken patterns on her instruments or who feels that tiny buzz of resonance and is instantly warned, I hear and see and feel the boat. Today the click, yesterday the tweaker on the wrong side of the sheet, years ago the feel of the almost broken forestay. Makes me highly unpopular sometimes! I remember getting cross with McQ last year for being so absorbed in whatever her ipod was doing to the inside of her head that she had not noticed the leech flutter or something equally trivial in itself but part of a larger pattern - the butterfly's wing on the other side of the world.

And I still miss heaps - the disconnected windvane when Pete went overboard 4 years ago, for instance. Complacency sucks but it's so easy!

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Berri ritual part 1

Just had a hard boiled egg for lunch that I certainly wouldn't have looked at at home! Big air cavity, black yolk end and sort of flaky - very hard to peel. Interesting pong. Disguised it with mayo - the real thing, not the insipid goo that passes for it these days - and some pickled beetroot. Loverly! I could eat beetroot all day - smashing veggie! And it makes peeing into our little plastic bucket such fun.

Norm - one for you - I think it was Helena Rubinstein who said that her product represented the triumph of hope over reality. Or words to that effect.

Daily rituals: very important for marking the passing of time and ensuring, for instance, that things don't get forgotten.
0900 - I'm coming off watch and Pete is coming on. 'You awake, Pete?' 'aarghmpfh yes' ' It's time' So he gets out of his pit and I work my way around the dodger -tricky in these conditions - with a bucket containing 2 cans of Dr Murphy's excellent medicinal compound all the way from Crosshaven. I work my way forward to Berri's fridge - Coolgardie variety, milk crate with wet towel wrapped around 2 Murphy's similarly delivered yesterday and exchange the warm for the cold. Surprisingly effective fridge if you keep it primed - see below - and in the shade and the breeze. The evaporation of the water from the towel requires heat and this is extracted from the cans. Great care required on return journey so as not to shake cold cans and exacerbate widgetary effusion - see below. Pete gets out special tankards from the sliding cupboard, carefully deals out small handful from last bag of molto toothsome crisps from Lisbon. Then the careful positioning of can - for me, inside the tankard - so that the instant widgetary effusion at the moment of unzipping goes mainly in the pot and then I pour it and - sweet nectar of the gods, it slips away with gentle fluid caress of the olfactories and the other thingies on the tongue.

Then I go to bed and last about an hour before the pee bucket calls. Bugger decrepitude!

Fridge priming - at least three times a day it is necessary to pour sea water over the towels to keep them damp. Pete usually does the final one in his 2100-midnight watch. There is also a bottle of tonic cooking quietly in the fridge awaiting its fate at 1700 - see part 2.

Acknowledgements

Lots of acknowledgements: Maureen, your cake has been deployed to great effect - thanks!. It will sustain us most of the way to the Cape.
Doug, thanks for Henry. He has a new waypoint and we'll get the jelly snakes out in a few days. Morro - thanks for work-around for USB thing - we use similar technique to start and try to disable or kill the serial ballpoint mouse as well - the real problem arises when the thing crashes without warning or explanation having apparently been running perfectly for days. CF18 now disconnected from USB and just running Airmail and iridium and SFSG. Daren't fiddle with it in case I destroy iridium set up and can't restore. Will be interesting to monitor success or otherwise of toy netbook which is now doing the USB and SoB. Basic problem there is that netbook has truncated screen and cant get Bottom edge of SoB screen with important cursor info. But a work around for the time being. Only using it because have separate 12v charger for it - have three toughbooks of different vintage but all have to share same charger.
Norm - tks for kind words and the other bit. I think you may have read correctly between my lines. Would appreciate your keeping posts a bit shorter - half a page or so - as sailmail can only cope with 11kb at a time and Steve has to break up his sends to us. Haven't turned left yet - won't be for about a week somewhere down between 25 & 30 S
Allan - ok - you redeemed yourself! But you're still a DOF! Glad the engine works - sounds a bit like a bigger version of mine.
Chris J - Andy? Actually, I hope we don't get anywhere close enough to Tristan for VHF but good to have your info - thanks.
Sue - Berri doing fine - El Pinko behaving - now getting cooler so not so scratchy under fur.

Lows and highs part 1

0700/10th position 1526 02456 trip 133/24 2595 to Cape Town

Still a'hooning, heading south along longitude 24.58 W to get down to where we hope the back of the high will be. To continue yesterday's explanation for the non-sailors, south of about 35 degrees the westerly winds begin - you're in the top of the roaring forties. in the forties, a line of low pressure systems tramps around the globe at various intensities and frequency. A southern hemisphere low rotates clockwise and draws air in towards the centre - think water going down a plughole - and the closer you are to the left front quadrant of the system you are the stronger the wind. The combination of the anticlockwise high to the north and the clockwise low to the south tends to promote and intensify the westerly winds where the two meet and the trick for us is to trek along the bottom of the high and the top of the low.

More on this later - must send it and get on with ritual. Post on ritual to follow too.

Latest Position

A distant barn door - perhaps

For the non-sailors and the meteorologically challenged: the weather in the central South Atlantic tends to be dominated at this time of year by a high pressure system that is centred broadly south of St. Helena. It stretches across from the S. American coast almost to Africa and sometimes down to about 35 south at its biggest. We won't go into why it's there and definitely not into coriolis force but a high in the southern hemisphere is a system in which air descends from the upper atmosphere and radiates outward from the centre in an anti-clockwise direction. There is always a soft windless patch in the centre. That means that the wind on the western side of it blows down the S American coast from the north or north east and on the other side, up the African coast from the south. Along the southern edge, it blows from the west, roughly along latitudes 25-30 south.

It follows that to get from the NE corner of Brazil(where we were a week or so ago) across to Cape Town, it is much easier to head south or SSE down the western edge of the high and turn left or east as you get towards the southern edge, taking advantage of favourable winds all the way. If you try to take the straight line you are likely to be heading into the southerly wind on the eastern side - and also the Benguela current which flows north up the African coast. We are now trying to smooch the best course from here to the Cape by cutting the corner around the south western edge of the high but not losing the wind by getting too close to the centre. This big arc is also closer to the great circle or shortest distance across.

Sailing to Australia by this route has its inherent penance. A bit like an out and back marathon, where the entire first half is sheer brain and tissue damage just getting you to the turn around point, you set out from Falmouth for Australia by going south west to get around West Africa and the effective turning point as you pass west of the Cape Verdes at about 27 W. And then you have to go a long way east to get the best angle to cross the convergence zone and the SE trades - a zig and a zag so far, plus another zig to get across and down to the base of the S Atlantic high which is what we are doing now. But - big but - yesterday morning I now think it safe to say, grabbing the nearest bit of wood, we made the final turn for home and we are heading SE towards Tristan da Cunha and the base of the high. Yeeebloodyhaaa! And so far, nothing difficult - just 'orrible in the CZ and uncomfortable for the arse bone down here. We may still have to trek a bit west on the way, to adjust our course around the high but I think we're looking towards a very distant barn door south of Hobart.

Appendages please, everyone!

A risky post.

0700/09 position 1318 02524 trip 133/24 so a good run and still east of yesterday's position.

Falmouth is 3970 miles away but that is now pretty meaningless. We have sailed 4528 miles to get here and we have 2690 miles to Cape Town in a straight line. In 30 miles, we will have a Pete Goss moment with the Talisker to celebrate 4000 miles in a straight line and then I will start looking the other way and measuring progress towards rather than away.

I've been thinking about the nature of risk since Macca asked my opinion about the Jessica phenomenon. I'm sure there is a raging debate in Australia about whether she should have been 'allowed' to go or even 'encouraged'. I don't want to buy into that one and anyway it will all have been said by someone else. Instead, I think we could play with a new word - jessication (n) to jessicate (v) - meaning the taking of potentially lethal risk for the thrill of it, or to prove one's heroism, or to break a record that perhaps does not merit the breaking. And a jessicateur might be one who encourages such endeavours. Pete and I are probably at one end of the scale - we are experienced, have been there before and can handle most of what Murphy and the Examiner toss at us. At the other end - I understand that statistically, for instance, attempts at the deepest under water dive on a single lungful of air are at about even money and the record is held by someone who died in a subsequent attempt. Not sure about base jumping but it must out there somewhere too.

Purely scientific risk in the same broad context but where the benefits are to humanity, not just to the risk taker don't count. For example, injecting oneself with a new vaccine to test its effect or the man who believed in his new invention sufficiently to jump from a balloon with it so giving us the parachute.

From Pete

Hi, Its Pete here this time. I've tried to write a few times this trip but for whatever reason it hasn't happened. My last attempt was about 6 hours ago when after about 5 lines of text the blue screen of death appeared.
We had an email a few days ago from an old mate Allan Fenwick who sails an S&S 34 called Morning Tide. Over the last 5 or more years he and my eldest daughter Sarah sail to Lord Howe Island about 2 weeks after the finish of the Sydney to Lord Howe Island yacht race. Sometimes they make it there sometimes they don't. Anyone who has done the LHI race will tell that this is one of the most spectacular places to finish a race and because of this there are a lot of ex racers who love the place but don't want the hassle of racing there. The solution The Lord Howe Island Cruise. A date is set for all to meet at Ned's Beach on the North side of the island for a barbeque. A lot of the old racing boats make the trip, the crew are a generous lot and money is raised for the local primary school.
A few days ago Morning Tide left Lake Macquarie about 40 miles north of Sydney heading for the island, on board were Allan Sarah and a friend of hers Jonathan. They were about 15 miles offshore when Allan saw an orange smoke flare set off from a large ship about a mile away. They altered course dropped the sails and motored towards the ship. After while they located a crewman in the water. Allan had attended one of Alex's Safety and Sea Survival courses years ago and he said that's when the information learned there kicked in. He had a MOB rescue sling on the back of the boat, it has about 50 mts. of floating line with a buoyant sling at the end. This was thrown off the stern and Allan motored in circles around the crewman till he could grab the line and get the sling under his arms. Sarah and Jon pulled the line in and heaved the man on board.
They got him below wrapped him in a Sea Rug, gave him some warm tea with sugar and Sarah talked to him to make sure he stayed conscious. Allan contacted the water police and then headed for Newcastle. Off the harbour entrance the water police met them and put a paramedic on board. Morning Tide continued up the river to a jetty where an ambulance was waiting for them.
The crewman had chest and back injuries from his 20 metre fall to the water and was suffering from shock and hypothermia.
Well, what can I say hats off to the three of you bloody well done. You have probably saved the man's life its something not many people get to do and for that reason you are now special.
Al I'm not sure but I guess the cruise is off for this year, maybe next year we can get Zoe, Berri and the S&S over there.
Best wishes Pete.