From: OmanTri
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:40:07 -0000
To: update
Subject: Thursday Morning

Distance to go — 1158nm

Full on night again in rain clouds brings squalls of up to 30kts of wind,
and sudden wind direction changes of 60 degrees. After a great day sailing
yesterday making good progress, the building clouds and occasional
lightening around dusk were the advance warning signs of a long night ahead.
Sure enough as the first dark cloud came over head the wind shifted and
increased suddenly – we rode it out – keeping the boat headed as high upwind
as we could without stopping, before the cloud had gone. Wind speed was
around 19 kts really too much for a genoa we are nurseing northwards with a
damaged leach ( aft side of the triangular sail). Next cloud – furl early,
same again feather the boat upwind, there after we set the smaller solent
jib that allows us to deal with higher wind speeds. Then around 2330 GMT,
two and a half hours before sunrise we could see by the light of the moon an
enourmous cloud, furl solent, put reef in….. then wind dropped to 4 kts.
We were left there without wind, the boat slamming between her two outside
float hulls, and the mainsail and mast crashing back and forth. after a
while ( seems like a lifetime ) we set the genoa, only just as we are about
to unfurl it, the wind cranks back in, and we are back to the solent jib.
Though the clouds are getting fewer now ,there are still a few on the
horizon, and just a few mins ago – the guys on deck recieved another shower
( see pic )

Quite typically, in the middle of these squalls Mohsin has a call arranged
with Oman TV, we make it happen – just between rain squallys, and I hope
the TV station didn’t notice any extra noise on the call – we had winches
winding for a while, and the ‘popping’ of the deck as the sheets are
hardened in, sailing the boat must continue even when on live TV –
especially in these conditions.

Had a good chance to wash in all this rain, which has been nice, and since i
promised new shorts, and t-shirt at the equator, it was nice to climb into
some fresh clothes after a good wash, this doesn’t leave me with too many
spares as we go into the final few days, so going to be carefull around the
rain, and any spray that comes onboard.


We can see on the satellite pictures that we are getting onboard that there
are a few more miles of these clouds to go, but once past 7 north things
seem to be a little more settled. The same satellite picture is the first
to have some Oman land on it – right at the top for now – but we’ll look
forward so seeing that expand as we gain distance to the north.

The days seem to be going quickly at the moment – a good sign, I think by
the end of sunday we’ll be thinking that every second is taking an hour, but
for now the fast ticking clock is with us, and there is some motivation on
board to ensure we have completed everything on our Round the World
experience list that we can before arriving. you don’t often get the
chance to sail around the world so you have got to fit everything in!!! I
am not sure what exactly is left, but I don’t want to wake up a few weeks
from now, and think – hey, i went all the way around the world and didn’t do
that!