RACE COMMITTEE
2010.06.21
1000
I'm still waiting for a complete comm boat report. They are transitioning as HECLA gets out of range. I have positions for Hecla, Second Verse and Southernaire. Bandicoot is back at the Richmond YC and has retired. Mirage is coming back in again due to insufficient electrons. Will post as soon as received.
SECOND VERSE
2010.06.21
0800
Yesterday was there was a lot of wind and big seas. In fact, for two hours there it was 34 kts sustaining with gusts to 38! The seas were above my second spreader! I have to admit for those two hours I wished I were somewhere else. Better now.
One of the blades of the wind generator ripped off! Gone! Well, there goes that power source, I will bring a spare set next time.
I have all this great food but I really have not eaten yet, just one apple and some jerky. I'll try to force some food down today.
A tanker crossed my path last night when I was asleep. I called him up on VHF and asked if he ever saw me, nope! Oh well, no reason to worry about that now.
Once these seas calm down I'll begin to tidy up, it is a mess in here! BTW, sleeping on the floor is not that bad, I got a full hour at one point last night, real good sleep, and I dreamed I was taking a hike with the kids.
Second Verse, signing off and searching for the sun and calm seas.
HECLA
2010.06.21
0715
Good Monday morning,
Sorry I did not get a blog out last night, had some issues.
The daytime was very good actually, the best news being I was hungry at lunch time meaning the end of the motion sickness. It was sunny occasionally and some things dried out, for a short while anyway. I fixed a great sauteed shrimp plate for dinner, and while enjoying that, and having launched the small spinnaker during a light air deep reach afternoon, the masthead spin halyard block exploded, also damaging some other components on the mast including the main halyard clutch. This cost me some time and a great deal of energy retrieving the large colorful shrimp net from beneath the boat. It is also a serious performance hit for which I have not yet developed a plan. There is a spare but undersized block up there that I can rig from deck but I expect another blowout. Stay tuned.
I am also experiencing difficult satellite phone connections so I often can not send or retrieve emails on a timely basis. Maybe the other boats are hogging our local satellite!