BLISS has finally time to post us an update. They have been working hard in the second leg:
“Finally a quiet moment for an update. What a race so far on board Bliss!!
Firstly, that long calm just after the start (grrr). When we finally picked up some speed and heel, in the middle of the night we heard the sound of splashing water from under the floorboards! When we took drinking water in Bergen, we spoiled a few buckets of water. We thought we found the cause then, but apparently we didn’t. In the middle of the night we had to take the floor away, pumped the water out, dried everything and finally the co-skipper could jump into his bunk again and the skipper back to her night watch.
Later the wind increased to 20-25 kts. We enjoyed it! After a while, though, we discovered that the screws which attached the autopilot bracket to the helm came loose. In the pouring rain we tried to replace the broken screw with a new one. Unfortunately this was cut as well, after a few hours. We’re now supporting the bracket with tie-wraps and straps, which worked well as long as the weather will stay as calm as it is now.
A bit later we were hit by a squall and 30 knots of wind. Some increase of wind has been forecasted but not this much! BLISS was stil under full main an jib. Because of the shape of the main we could handle it quite well for a long time. Nevertheless we quickly set two reefs. Fortunately the wind dropped swiftly again and the bunk watch could rest again.
Today all went well, despite a rather ‘unsafe meal’; it was even, thanks to the clear sunny weather, quite pleasant.
As we speak we are 53 miles from the finish and sailing windward in the lovely evening sun. We’ll expect a calm again and a windshift later, which could make it possible to get to the Bressay Sound without another tack.
We have no idea where we are in the race. A calm usually is in the advantage of the slower boats. We’ll see. The part between the calm at the start and the 30knts squall would have been perfect for a C0 of C5. We watched on the AIS the yacht which have such a sail sprinting away.., while we just could get to 7 knots with our 100% jib.
I think, it all will depend on if all the yachts wil get into that calm or only just the slower boats. We’ll see, we just sail as fast as possible.
ETA 5AM CEST
Auto-pilot repair
