Now only 60 nm from the scoring gate
2009-05-19 by Roger Nilson
Another foggy day at 44º 30 North. Good news that the water's temperature is up from nasty 4,3 degrees Celcius this moorning to accaptable 10,4 right now. Heater is still working!
Also good news that no more ice cold spray flying along the deck as the wind has dropped and headed, moved left, as predicted. We are now coming under influence from the High Pressure system centered 500 nm ENE of us.
During a large part of the day we had the wind 20 degrees further right at the masthead compared to deck level. This is due the fog. Suddenly the fog lifted away and we could steer 20 higher course with out any change in wind direction at top of mast! When no fog the airmass at 30 meters comes down to the surface, an interesting phenomena.
At lunch today Jaime [Arbones, watch captain] found that we had a small aquarium on starboard side of the deck. A recess in the dockhouse had filled up with water and in that small pool of water we found a tiny little fish swimming around, looking very lost! The 10 cm fish had a very lucky day as Jaime gently lifted it in its tail and dropped it back into the ocean. Probably it had travelled about 40 nm with us and might now get a hard time finding its friends...
We are now only 60 nm from the scoring gate which simply is crossing the longitude 52 38 West. We decided yesterday not to focus on the scoring gate, instead focus on the South West corner of the ICE box at 43 N and 50 W. If wind direction does not change too much, it is a possibility that the four leading boats to the North of us, could be behind us after we are forced to tack into a South Westerly direction. Delta Lloyd would be close to us if we tack as she is SW of us... Time will tell.
After the ICE box it looks like the high is moving off to the SE and that we will be picked up by a new LOW that should bring us almost all the way to Galway. The low will offer fast running conditions which is not our favourite conditions... We certainly need to be ahead at the ICE box!
Oops! As I write this we hit something hard on port side… Just a hard crash, does not mean to stop the boat. We hoisted the daggerboard and found some small damage at the back end of the board and a greesy oily smell from its leading edge. Seems like we hit some animal again…
Today David has made a stronger seal for the wetbox above the keel. The box that filled up with water a few hours after the start. No problem now but when we will go fast, after the ice exclusion zone, there will be more water pressure on the lid of the wetbox… Should now be strong enough.
That was all from the Telefónica Black, close to enter Grand Banks..
Yours,
Roger Nilson
"Telefónica black" navigator