Day 401 – THE ATLANTIC: Day Seven


Distance sailed today: 98 NM

Total distance sailed: 325 NM

Midnight GPS position: N 26.14 W022.36

Wind: NNE Wind Force 3-4

Sea state: Slight

Generator hours: 10.1hr

A D-shackle broke on the mainsail boom this morning. Unfortunately the checking of this particular shackle was overlooked because Steve usually secures the bolt in all the shackles on the boat with a cable tie, to prevent them working loose. This boat however was prepared by someone else…

Fortunately Steve was able to salvage a replacement shackle from the spinnaker sheet (‘sheet’ means rope) block (‘block’ means pulley). Then came the problem – what to replace the spinnaker sheet block shackel with? We don’t have a spinnaker with us, so whatever we use to re-attach the spinnaker block with doesn-t need to bear any forces. First Mate Ellie ducked inside and came out a few moments later with a padlock – just right!

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And in othew news, we caught a fish today. A good 4kg torada. Foul-hooked through the eye, but caught all the same. We had the line trawling along behind us for about four hours and as soon as the reel gave out it’s wonderful clicking noise to indicate that something was hooked, it was all go.

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A few minutes later, we had a gutted headless fish in the freezer.

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