Sam Davies’ daily log - Things that go bump in the night.
Hello everyone
Well, I just had what the French call a "nuit blanche" – a white night (not to be confused with a White Knight (unfortunately!)), which is a night with no sleep. However, rather confusingly, my night was very very black!
Just as I was contemplating my sleeping bag, there was a loud bang as Roxy hit something small, but solid. I know the sound and recognised that my rudder had popped up on the impact (to save itself) so I rushed on deck to make sure it was out of the water. It was the leeward rudder that had ejected, so now Roxy was careering dangerously all over the ocean, as Chuck (the autopilot) desperately tried to control us with the remaining rudder, which was only partially in the water half of the time.
To avoid a wipeout, I quickly dropped three reefs into the main and rolled the solent; then I started on the rudder. It has a nice "war wound" to show for the impact, but nothing serious. Unfortunately it was the rudder that I had already repaired once, so I had to do some un-bolting and 'DIY' before I could put a new fuse in and get it back down. This took a little while, and caused the usual drenching in the back of the boat with my head underwater as the waves broke into my workspace. I re-bolted the thing back together, all in 25knots of wind and the pitch black, of course.
By this time, the wind shift I was waiting for had materialised and so I needed to gybe. As soon as the rudder was down and tools put away, I then undertook the delightful job of stacking everything onto the other side of the boat. Then we gybed (that's the easy part!). This was concluded with the shaking of two of the three reefs I had hastily put into the main earlier.
After this, you can imagine how tired, hot and sweaty I was (plus seawater ingress from work in transom!!) NICE!!! By this time, the wind was beginning to drop to less than 25knots and it became apparent that I needed Genevive, the big gennaker. I considered my state of fatigue (I was knackered) and the fact that it was still quite "fruity" to put up Genevive and decided that a couple of hours sleep would put me in better (and safer) form for the manoeuvre!
So, I treated myself to the rest, and now Genevive is in place, and ROXY is rocketing along like her old self again. I am a bit tired and very hungry now!! Next on the list: eat, then wash and change, followed by a bit more sleep to make up for my white night!!
Just another day at the office.....
S x
At 1100 UK time, Sam Davies aboard Roxy was in 7th position, 1,632 miles from race leader Michel Desjoyeaux aboard Foncia
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