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Crew member on RSA23 Phesheya-Racing
Written by Crew member on RSA23 Phesheya-Racing Wednesday, 25 August 2010 14:20
For every day of fast sailing it seems there must be some payback andso after day 1 of the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race day 2has been really hard work, bashing away up wind!We reached the latitude of Lowstoft after less than 24 hours but soonafterwards were hit by a violent rain squall which caused the wind toveer through 50 degrees. It soon became clear that the weather washere to stay so we dropped the staysail and footed off bareheaded fora while, until we felt it was safe to hoist the storm jib! By sunsetthe seas had become very rough, with waves sweeping over the deck andmaking life uncomfortable to say the least!We quickly passed the oil fields off the Norfolk coast and thenthreaded our way past a series of ships in the early hours of themorning.Sunrise found us in a decreasing, but still gusty wind. Not a sign ofhuman life anywhere and even very little birdlife. Occasionally awhite flash on the horizon gave away the position of a foraginggannet, and sometimes a couple of fulmars or gulls would approach theboat for a quick look,but they never remained for very long.During the night we crossed the shallow waters of Dogger Bank,littered with shipwrecks. I guess many of them are from the famousnaval battle that occured near here.As the wind continued to decrease in the morning we hoisted thestaysail with a reef in it, in place of the storm jib. Later we shookout the reef and then also shook out one reef from the mainsail.We are now making steady progress towards the north in a northwesterly breeze but life is still very uncomfortable onboard as theseas are directly from the north and very steep, causing the boat tofly off the tops and crash violently into the trough below.