Pray to Huey

by Bouwe Bekking, Amer Sports One on 2 Dec 2001 Another day in paradise, well not real, the nice sailing is over, the
breeze has died out from 25 knots to only 7 knots, and it is hard to keep
the boat going, there is a big leftover swell, and it is nearly impossible
to fly the spinnaker. The winches are getting worked continuously, and we
rotate the grinders more often, otherwise you see angry faces. It is not
always easy to do this job, but they know as well that over trimming costs
us miles;

Our first 'real' damage happened today as well. During a
spinnaker change, we heard a loud bang, and the vang came crashing down on
the deck. Normally you would expect a big reaction of the crew, but not
after 2,5 weeks in the Southern Ocean, nothing really surprises us
anymore, just a quick look to each other, and in the mean time continuing
to finish the change. It appeared that we broke the vang attachment in the
boom. Pete [Pendleton], our handyman, quickly jury-rigged a new vang with
blocks, and it works well.

The good news is that we can use now again olive oil in our food. We have
been saving the oil, because we had a small leak in the vang, and used
already all our spare hydraulic and engine oil to fill up the reservoir to
keep all the systems running. Olive oil is like chocolate for us, it gives
the food taste, and more important plenty of calories.

We are giving Skippy (Chris Nicholson) a hard time, it is supposed to
become summer in Aussie, but this evening the temperature was down to six
degrees, and gloves and balaclavas are being put on again. But we know,
soon we are through Bass Strait temperatures will clime rapidly. Please
Huey (the god of wind): give us some more breeze, so that we can zoom to
Sydney in just a couple of days.