Sam Davies’ daily log - Pas Vent
AAaaaarrrgghhhh!!! I've got NO wind! Or very little!
To be honest, with my solid little Roxy boat, I'd rather have too much wind than not enough.
Roxy's been caught up by another little ridge of high pressure and we're temporarily stuck. I'm doing all I can to squeeze every quarter of a knot out of her to keep wriggling along. It doesn't seem fair that the leaders have managed to run all the way with the depression and we're stuck wallowing out here!! In fact it seems just about the worst for me here - I have my own little bubble of no wind!
Anyway, it should only be for a few hours and we will get going again.
Just this morning I was in 25-30 knots of wind and surfing some of the South Pacific’s finest waves. It was amazing - as I was preparing the big gennaker on the bow and on each surf it was like I was flying, as only the back of Roxy was touching the water and I was several meters up in the air as we whizzed off at 20+ knots!
I used to be a "bow chick" (numero 1) on fully crewed boats, so I'm used to the tough jobs up forward whilst speeding along. But the difference now is that there is no back-up behind me, and I am no longer trusting a skilled helmsman not to "wipeout", "chinese gybe" or "stuff it" on each wave. I just have Chuck - my famous nke autopilot. It is only thanks to all the time on the water, time spent with nke and homework with my electronics that I can trust Chuck 100% in these (and many other) situations to handle Roxy with the finesse that is necessary to keep me safe. For us solo sailors, our autopilot is our best friend, but can quickly become our worst enemy if it decides to go wrong.
And finally, my New Years resolutions:
Sail around the world
Take a photo of Cape Horn
Stop eating the Nutella out of the pot with my fingers
Do not fall asleep with the motor on charging the batteries
Sponge the bilges every day
Brush hair more than once a week
Eat more BUT eat less chocolate
Cancel the above resolution as it is impossible
Catch up some miles on the leaders
Be nice to Chuck, the autopilot
Take no risks
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
S x
P.S. The wind's coming back right now - hooray!!
P.P.S. Note for Denis - new vocabulary: wriggling, wallowing, whizzed, bow chick, wipeout, chinese gybe
At 1100 UK time, Sam Davies aboard Roxy was in 6th position, 2007.4 miles from race leader Michel Desjoyeaux aboard Foncia
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