Diary of a world record

Tuesday 22nd May
I haven't been doing too well sleep-wise so far, but I get a reasonable four hour knap before starting the early morning watch with Jan. We watch the sun rise ahead of us. The barometer has risen during the night, which I guess must be good. I've plotted the area of the threatened ice on my GPS, and by my reckoning, we'll miss it, but you can't be too sure. The one degree square is over the Grand Banks, which we're north of on the way in to St John's, and east of on the way out.

        We hit painfully heavy head seas on the way up the east coast of Newfoundland, but looking at it optimistically, it'll all be behind us on the way out. We arrive in the harbour to be met by ground crew chief Keith Walker, and our local contact Egbert. They've sorted out all the provisions and the refuelling. Once we've caught our breath after over 66 hours at sea, we're busy doing various TV and radio interviews.

        They've had snow here, but it's gone bar a few patches on the surrounding hillsides. Interestingly, it becomes apparent that the end of May, beginning of June is regarded in St John's as the silly season, when people arrive here from all over the world to try and cross the Atlantic in as many and varied ways as possible. We convince our interviewers that we know what we're doing, but we sense that they still reckon we're more than a trifle barking bonkers.
 

Just enough time for a quick interview for CBC

Jan and I are whizzed up to the local Quality Hotel for a quick shower, and I connect up to the phone for an email linkup. Then it's back to the boat to load all the food and water, while someone brings us some tea and fish and chips. Fresh caught today - fantastic! And then we're off again, after around two and a half hours. It was a great stop, but we'll need to be quicker on the turn-rounds next year.

        Now we're back at sea, and it's following, with a twenty knot wind pushing it along. At times we're chugging along at fifteen knots, then suddenly it's as though somebody lit the blue touch paper, and we're freewheeling downhill, surging forwards at over twenty. Unlike a head sea, where the speed and punishment remain constant, a heavy following sea makes for stop-go conditions. A big wave will have the boat labouring up it for what seems like ages. Then at the top, the bow lifts up into the air and the boat wallows about with very little forward motion. Then suddenly the bow smacks down, and we pick up speed.

        Whilst the following seas can't be described as mountainous, they're certainly extremely hilly. The swells are massive, but well spaced out, each with several waves, and can perhaps best be equated to terrain such as Dartmoor. When you look down from the top, you can see the trough a hundred yards or so ahead, a good fifty feet down - maybe more. It's difficult to estimate, but it looks horrifyingly BIG.

[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 ]