Alpaire Day 12

The stronger wind of the last few days is now dropping. We had a noon to noon run of 187 miles. Furia who is leading did 191. Taistalai (in second place) covered 185 miles. Bam from Howth, in the racing class, did 197. Sully and the guys in the Kinsale boat Crackerjack covered 175. We have 760 miles to go but our daily runs over the next while will be less because the breeze is softening. That is roughly the length of a Round Ireland race. However, we expect to complete our voyage without any headwinds and can expect much more benign conditions.

The sky last night was spectacular. Jupiter is making moves and closing in on the moon. Mars is no longer in alignment, but Venus is in hot pursuit. It you visualise standing on the Earth's surface and looking into space, then the constellations that appear upright from the Northern latitudes appear to be on their side when viewed from close to the equator. Orion is on its side here and its belt has become a zip! It is a wonder then that it took so long for civilisation to accept that the Earth was round. It just shows that it is very hard for humans to question preconcieved notions. If your belief was that celestial bodies moved about the heavens, then the constellations and the stars comprised in them were no longer a fixed frame of reference. As a result of this fundamentally flawed starting point it is impossible to deduce that the Earth is round. We have to continually question the foundations on which we base our views.

Des is reading Eric Hiscock's ocean sailing text book written in 1959. He is particularly interested in the bit about pest control. We think that he thinks that it is something to do with managing crew. I must remind him about the Flat Earth Society.

All transoceanic sailors write about becoming delusional. The skipper thinks that he is in control of the pests. If the truth be known Jan and Susan planted a really smart device in the auto pilot. Jan issues instructions from his computer. It gives misleading information to the boat's navigational instruments, which we rely on to sail the boat. We think we are going to St Lucia. Jan has programmed us to go to Crans Montana in Switzerland. Remember Apollo 13! I hope he has a routing programme for the Alps.

We saw a ship today, a small tanker. It passed about three miles South of us. We also saw a yacht in the distance in the afternoon. She crossed about two and a half miles ahead of us but had no AIS signal so we were unable to make a positive identification. Her course was quite Northerly so she may not be part of the ARC. We wonder where she is coming from and going to? Surely everybody is going to the rum party in St Lucia.

The fleet got the following message from ARC control today "At 1940 (UTC) 3 December, ARC Rally Control was contacted by the skipper of yacht Magritte (ID 164) to advise the yacht was taking on water. The source of the ingress could not be identified or stemmed and the four crew on board indicated that assistance was required as the situation worsened. On the advice of MRCC (Marine Rescue Coordination Center) Falmouth, a MAYDAY was issued and the yacht's EPIRB (Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon) activated. The liferaft was readied in anticipation of a possible need to abandon the yacht.

MRCC Cape Verde coordinated the evacuation of the crew. Cargo vessel SCL Basilea diverted to provide assistance, reaching Magritte at approximately 0500 (UTC). The crew were safely evacuated and are all well on board SCL Basilea which is now en route to Spain. Magritte was abandoned at approximate position 16 44.36N 027 27.82W."

That position is just West of the Cape Verde islands. The daily weather briefing suggests that conditions there today were 15 to 20 knots ENE with 2 to 3 meter swells. Earlier in the voyage we heard that that boat was taking water, and heading for the Cape Verdes. It is great that the rescue services were able to implement an efficient rescue. I always think that it is a pity that they do not ensure that any abandoned boat sinks. It is now a danger to others at night, but of course it is far to the East of us. The fact that the ARC is an organised event with many boats, de-risks the ocean voyage for everybody. The middle of the Atlantic is the most exposed area as the fleet by then has has separated, there is no shipping, and shore based rescue by helicopter is not possible. In our position, with circa 760 miles to go by noon, the fleet is converging, there is some shipping, weather conditions are good and we don't have too far to go.

I must conclude with fishing and supper. No more excitement! The boats that are catching lots of fish are doing so with rods. They know immediately if they have a strike. We are trailing lines with some shock cord to demonstrate the load at any time. We are now convinced that we need to count those three strikes we had on the double. It is obvious that first we caught a whopper on each line, but because we were busy we did not notice it. Then something even bigger came and ate the lot! What we have managed to catch is plenty of floating "saragosso" weed. There is plenty of that about. Certain members of the crew think that this is a sure cure for scurvy, of which more anon. Me thinks it is further confirmation that certain members of the crew are delusional!

There is plenty of that about too!

That's all for now from all of us on Alpaire, with just a Round Ireland to do!