Incident Number One Let’s start from a little way back. Yesterday we hoisted midshipman Nastya up the mast to untangle the main halyard. The three-metre swell worked against our efforts, and at the first spreaders the elements slammed our heroic midshipman into the shrouds, then once more, and again... Her safety line was secure, and the arc of Nastya’s flight was considerably smaller than the range of motion at the masthead. All in all, there were no casualties. We decided not to haul her all the way to the top, so the captain had to climb to the masthead himself. We untangled the halyard, hoisted the mainsail, and retired to lick our wounds and compare the weather forecast with the actual wind conditions. At first, the latter was 20 knots below the forecast, and then it exceeded the predicted figures by the same amount.
Incident Number Two The crew were flying from wall to wall as usual, struggling to make breakfast. Our young sailor was finishing her natural science textbook, while the midshipman, whom we had diagnosed yesterday with “a bruised everything,” spooned rice and egg into bowls and brewed tea. “If she’s up and about, she’ll live,” the officers decreed, and we even heard Nastya laugh at that.
“Something’s scraping by the mast,” she immediately reported, on the alert.
The captain stuck his head out onto the deck and—ta-da!—discovered that a shroud had broken loose: a diagonal supporting the spreader. Isn’t that lovely?
As a reminder, the captain replaced all the shrouds and fittings in Cape Town with his own two hands. After scrutinising the problem area, we found that the shroud and attachment points were intact, but the T-terminal had snapped. This is the third time metal has failed during this passage. Just imagine the loads ))—metal breaks, while people are still going strong.
The Coup de Grâce The Indian Ocean—and especially its southern reaches—has a bad reputation among sailors for good reason. It seems this passage of ours isn’t the hardest, but it is definitely the most wearing, for both the crew and the equipment.
And to complete the picture, here’s one more nuisance: rain has been pouring all day, the wind is blowing in from Antarctica, the temperature inside refuses to rise above 18 degrees, and the solar panels are sadly producing one tenth of their rated output. This post is the last thing my laptop will see today. If the sun doesn’t come out tomorrow, we’ll start switching off the instruments, because the battery charge is plummeting and the engine still won’t start. Only the tireless tracker from Iridium and MVS Telecom keeps sending signals to our website and text messages to our families. Thank you for that. And Lady Mary is here now:
“Route.”
The Cherry on Top And to cap it all, a storm is heading our way (it’s already gusting up to 40 knots, and it will be stronger tonight). We’ll heave to. What can you say? We’ll get through it. At least we’ll spend the whole evening playing card games; our young sailor is even pleased—Mum will have nowhere to sit and write or work, since the laptop’s flat anyway )).
A huge thank-you to Jakob R. and Andrey P. for topping up the expedition’s ship’s fund via
PayPal
and
Yandex Money
You’re helping us spread our wings, friends!
Thank you to everyone who worries about us, sends greetings, and beams of warmth! We value you so much, our dear lovely people, and we always look forward to your comments. Without that connection to the outside world, we would probably be thoroughly miserable by now, cut off from sunshine, electricity, and good weather. We’re casting spells to make our star appear tomorrow, otherwise we won’t have anything left to get online with )). Never mind—we may be few, but we’re wearing our sailor stripes, right? Everything will be fine! Greetings from 42 degrees south latitude. Australia is 1,865 miles away.