Day 16 to 18 – Sunday 19 to Tuesday 21 January 2020
By Nic Chapman and Daniel Skriker
After keeping a very steady position on 21 and a bit degrees latitude for several days and averaging over 7 knots on occassions we hit a bit of a dilemma because our emails stopped working and we also couldn’t get GRIB files to plot our weather routing. We eventually learnt that for some reason our data connection had maxed out at 10MB which was odd as Globecomm who generously sponsored out data had allocated us 100M. Very fortunately we had a backup satphone on board that our Scouts District Commissioner Paddy Milner had kindly donated to the Rotary Scout sailing programme and we communicated on this phone with the management committee to sort things out. Although we were in he middle of the ocean it sounded like we were just next door it was so clear on that phone with no delays at all. We had also written some blogs on the laptops in preparation for when we had data access again. What has become very apparent is the need to have backups of everything for occassions such as this. We have two of almost everything on board (including skippers and fishing rods!) and being able to test the data connection using Nic’s backup laptop after we couldn’t connect on his main laptop made us realise it was an account issue and not the laptop. We also had to resort to providing our daily position to the race admin via the Satphone while our mail was down because unless we do so between 14:00 and 18:00 each day we get fined 10 minutes for each time that we neglect to do so.
Unfortunately we discovered that we only had 5kg of gas left after an apparent leak on the connection at the bottles so we are being very conservative with our gas usage now and braiing a lot more. The only problem is with braaing home made bread which is quite tricky as it either burns or doesn’t cook at all. Our perishable foods such as carrots and apples were also pretty vrot so we had to donate them to the fish overboard. At least we have lots of canned food to fall back on but we have been somewhat spoilt with our meals so far. Ewan and Matt were put under pressure to come up with some creative recipes by their watch partners while Mika and Matt took to playing card games to take their minds off tinned food.
We tried swimming off the stern in harnesses while going at over 6 knots which was quite an experience as there is no way one can even think about keeping up with the boat at such speeds, as Dom and Josh found out quite quickly, needing to gulp for air in the boat’s wake.
Reading some of the blogs from other boats it appears that quite a few of them have suffered damage to their sails which can’t be nice as it affects their performance. Fortunately we still have a good set of a the sails we require on board.
After over 2 weeks at sea in the new year the reality of life at home is starting to dawn on us as Daniel and I are needing to register for our courses this year at Stellies. It seems so strange at this stage to consider having to go back to varsity or school. What is rather odd is we are also now receiving Portugese lessons from one of our parents and they arrive no matter what the connection – email, text messages on the satphone and no doubt verbal too if we try and make a call! While this interesting education effort does make some sense and we debate on board what the pronunciations should be, hopefully our Google Translate app will work in Rio.