Dear Family and Friends
Happy, happy birthday to Skipper Gerrie! From all of on board ship, we thank you for this opportunity and for your wisdom and experience allowing so many Newbies get half way across the Atlantic both safely an rapidly. We still need more of that for the remainder please...
It's good to report all well with the crew on Rocket as we like to think we are just about halfway - depending on weather routing of course.
It was a hectic night last night. Weather required us to jibe (change direction in a not so easy manner) around midnight Ship Time. Our jibe is rather more difficult as the main mast guide rail was destroyed in the initial Cape Storm. All went well with mild winds and clear sky. While the build up of clouds should be slow, they seem to develop with uncanny speed.
Our radar reported rain squalls all around and we certainly were battered around. Yet another "All hands" was required around 2am ship time. To date we have only had one night without an "all hands" call. Unfortunately for Gareth's watch of Bushy, Johan, Pieter and Volker, this has inevitably pulled them out of rest time (bed time or sleep time may be an overstatement). The front deck team of Pieter, Johan, Bushie and Gareth is a formidable team and Volker is rock solid on the helm. (Johan's vast general knowledge also allows us to use him as Google off-line).
The port side steering broke in the middle of the storm calling RR into instant action (at 2am). Spanners, screwdrivers, pulleys, underfloor hellholes - amidst a writhing boat. Of course the driver (and everyone else) hopes that the starboard steering now holds up. (There is also a manual tiller - this is always made ready just in case). Repaired in record time.
On behalf of all illustrious spinnakers, I am happy to report that RR finally repaired our initial ripped spinnaker and brought this poor, downtrodden specimen back to life. You may remember this is the sail which required around 50m of fine cross stitching. Gerrie and his master sail repair team managed to stitch/tape/sail-repair this magnificent beast back to life. We flew this repaired spinnaker earlier today with some trepidation - but it is still holding six hours later. Well done RR and Sir Spinnaker.
RR has had yet another busy day as can be seen from the above. We are all having real showers today to prepare for a huge birthday party :) - and of course the watermaker called in faulty again. RR is resolving this as we speak.
I have not forgotten that I said I would describe the daily schedule - in one of the next episodes :).
Lots of love and best wishes to all our family and friends
Regards
Mike and the Mechanics
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