RKJ wishes a Happy 100th Birthday Aunt Aileen!
by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston on 23 Dec 2006

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston onEdition
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Today is very special day my Aunt Aileen Fraser-Tyler celebrates her 100th Birthday!
If I live that long and if I can be half as bright as she is now I will be more than satisfied. She is one of those rarities who got a degree in the 1920s; an MA in fact.
Last time I sailed solo around the world she made me an excellent fruit cake which I opened at Cape Horn. This time she decided that it was now a tradition to carry on and, so she supervised her younger sister Maureen (a very active 83 year old) in making another. I am just hoping the Australian authorities will allow me to keep it, or put it in bond while we are in Fremantle, so that I can open it at Cape Horn this time round.
Yesterday was spent on battens again and by the evening I had the last one re-roped but could not get it to go right into its pocket. I left it lashed all night as the wind eased and I needed more power. I should really have put the spinnaker up really, but by the time I had finished night had fallen and it was giving Murphy a free punch to try and hoist the spinnaker in the dark.
Also, to be honest, I was tired. Working 11 hours on a batten is tiring, especially when it won't go back in! It turned out that I caught Murphy out for once as the wind rose before midnight in gusts, so we were doing 8 knots one minute and 20 the next and the spinnaker would have been a serious embarrassment.
As it was I took in the 2nd reef again. By morning, though, it has calmed down and we have the full main up and are close hauled, heading as close to north-east as the wind allows with a batten sticking out forwards, a risk I have to take if we are going to keep moving.
The high pressure centre is passing east of us to our north and I want to get behind it and into the easterly airstream as speedily as possible. The easterlies are not ideal, of course, westerlies would give us a much faster run in to Fremantle, but we have to make the best of what we have got, or hope we are going to get!
For the navigators, the Variation is now tumbling down from the maximum we had of 51 degrees west, six days ago. That compares with the 4-5 degrees west we have in the English Channel. It's now down to 24 degrees west.
I am now seven hours ahead of the UK, so I have had lunch by the time this daily diary goes. Today I have dined on tinned tuna, raw onion and mayonnaise. I have two tins of tuna left and two onions, so it's every other day from here to finish it off!
Sara had told me to put a stretch bandage on my sprained wrist. I have done so and, miraculously, managed to keep it dry! However, when I was taking in a reef just now (as the wind is rising again) my foot got caught in a line and I fell, catching the fall on my wrist, so not much achieved as far as recovery is concerned so far!
The seas are not great today at all, but there is a long, low swell always there.
To those logging off for Christmas, may you have a merry one, and perhaps by the time you log back on I might have Fremantle in sight!
Yacht Saga Insurance - 0700 GMT Friday December 22 2006
Latitude 41 10 South
Longitude 102 38 East
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