Monday 27 November 2023
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Mon 27 Nov 2023 21:39
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16:14.35N
30:27.52W what three words : toolkit.fizzles.null
I'm pleased to say that last night, for the first time
in almost a week, we were flying fish free. That's not to say they didn't try
(we don't know either way) but none made it onto, or into, the boat. Phew.
Unfortunately, however, we were equally as fish free on
the two fishing lines we trailed behind the boat or most of the day - the trauma
of the first fishing incident having subsided sufficiently. This time we had a
proper plan on how to land and dispatch of any unsuspecting fish that found
itself being hauled in. The winds are settling in to the trades now and we
pretty consistently have 15-20 knots most of the day which means the Atlanic
swell is an ever present feature of our lives. The boat rises and falls
over the waves that greet the stern of the boat, lifting it up and pushing it
forward. This is what is helpng us maintain our above six knots average speed
which is great! What it is not great for, it turns out, is dragging a rubber
squid on the end of the line. We summised that the additional pressure of often
hitting 8-9 knots was a bit too much as the rubbery lure had split and come away
from its fastening. Luckily as it did it got caught on one of the giant hooks.
It's possible that a squid travelling at 9 knots through the water is somewhat
unrealistic for would be hungry fish. I don't know much about squid but I'm
reasonably sure they are not the cheatah of the cephalopod community. How
confusing it must be for any tuna swimming along to see the blur of a squid
passing at break neck speed.
It seems like there are milestones every day at the
moment - I did say it's easy to find achievement in most things so it's not
surprising. Today's milestone was crossing 30 degrees west which is
'interesting' for two reasons: firstly it happens to sit exactly midway between
the longitude of London (0 degrees) where we live and therefore where Andy and
I started this adventure, and St Lucia (60 degrees) which is obviously our
final destination. Secondly it means we have passed into a new time zone. As the
world is a circle of 360 degrees longitude and has 24 hours in a day, for every
15 degrees you travel around the world east to west, you move time zone by 1
hour. For various reasons, the Canaries, which sit at 15 degrees west, share the
same time as London but purely from a longitude perspective it should be minus
one hour. When we set our ship's clock immediately after we left the marina in
Las Palmas we put it back one hour to sync. The further we travel west, each 15
degrees, we need to adjust the clocks on board so that we don't arrive in St
Lucia and immediately have a four hour time difference. Having said all that
though we have decided to wait until we are about another 10 degrees west before
we adjust the clocks because we like the slightly later sunsets we are currently
having (which are around half six).
We continue to work our way south but not as much as
some of our fellow ARC boats, some of which are now further south that St Lucia
and will need to come back up. This is to avoid a lighter wind patch that is
generating to the north. We are anticipating the divergence of boats will close
in again a bit soon as the available options become more limited in terms of
routes. We are now starting to see that the likelihood for squalls is
increaasing. These can be very short lived but quite nasty rain storms that whip
up 30plus knots and for which we need to be able to quickly and safely change
the sail plan. Changing our pole from one side to the other currently takes some
time as we have to de rig about four different lines. Tomorrow's mission will be
to find a way to do this with minimum effort and max speed.
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