Thursday 20 August 1758: After some short tacking by A watch (Andy's watch team rather than mine, meaning I was being thrown around in my bunk) down the side of the traffic separation zone off the Fastnet (these tss zones are obstructions on course and time penalties given if entered) we settled onto a best course to windward as B watch came on deck (as close to the wind as we can steer without flogging the sails and without losing too much speed) towards the scilies and shortly afterwards the wind picked up... Forcing the other watch out of bed to help us change down the jib to a smaller one. We were pushed northerly of our line, as couldn't quite hold the course we wanted, but after watch A came back on deck a wind shift enabled us to come back south of the line.
It's been a grey, wet and windy day but apart from the occasional slam over a wave and the obstacle course it take so get into my bunk it's been another fun days sailing... Although we've definitely experienced what the Irish (and Celtic) sea can throw at you over the last couple of days, think we saw 40 knots on our way West and haven't been far off the same today, which is nothing to what it can be on a bad day! A stark reminder of how bad things can be was the all ships call to Fastnet racers from the Irish coastguard, that had me leaping out of my bunk to listen to and respond... A yacht had set off its epirb (emergency beacon essentially) and wasn't responding to vhf so they were trying to get yachts in the vicinity to relay to the yacht. They were showing as moving on ais and the yellow brick tracker and eventually a nearby cargo ship managed to get them on the vhf. In this case all ok and just set off by mistake or unknowingly at a guess but it could have been very different.
We're now bearing away from the wind back towards the best route and have 60 or so miles to go to the scilies... The sun has come out, I'm in my slightly flatter bunk and it's happy hour when I wake up!
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