Winter turned into summer
2009-05-20 by Roger Nilson
What a relief! Winter turned into summer as we swept around the SE corner of the ICE box. Water temp was suddenly up to 18º Celsius, blue skies and hot sun as we hoisted our big kite at lunch today and started to go downhill.
Ericsson 4 was close in our heels around the imagery mark and after a short gybe to the North we could even see the Telefónica Blue boat on the SW horizon.
The reason for the warmth is of course a branch of the Gulf Stream which, at times today, was pushing us NE with 2 knots of welcome current. This famous current is the only reason why we in Scandinavia have an acceptable climate, other wise Stockholm would be like Northern Alaska.
The warm current brought something with it that caused an unexpected little adventure today. Suddenly the whole boat started to vibrate and the steering felt very strange. Nothing was hanging on the rudders so what could it be? David took the endoscope and put it through its hole in the bottom of the boat to inspect the keel and dagger board. He burst out into a roaring laughter: "Look, look there is a big turtle stuck on the leading edge of the keel, unbelievable!."
Nobody believed him till we all had a quick look through the optical instrument. Sure, there it was, a 3 feet full size ocean going turtle was hanging on the front side of the thin keel blade and desesperatly trying to free it self with all its four little paddle like fins. Fernando at the helm was doing everything to help it come loose, first by swinging the keel from side to side, finally he put the boat into a full broach in the modest 15 knots SSW'ly wind. Ericsson 4, only 2 miles behind us must have been wondering what we were doing, steering all over the ocean in order to free our selves from a turtle!
No luck, the turtle was still stuck pressed onto the keel by 13 knots of boat speed.
"Let us stop the boat and back off!" is the call from Fernando and soon we drop the kite on the foredeck, go head to wind, stop and with help of the staysail go backwards.
"There it is, just next to the boat!" says David and we can all see the seemingly unhurt turtle swimming around on the surface in gentle circles. What a ride for the poor animal! It looks happy and we wave goodbye, hoist the kite and off we go again. Ericsson 4 is now a few hundred meters behind but hours later they have passed us with their irritating edge in boat speed.
Another day in the office...Who said it is booring to be at sea?
Yours,
Roger Nilson
Navigator, Telefónica black