Day 2 has been sunny, hot and just starting to get slightly humid on board Uniquely Singapore as we make our way out of the Bay of Biscay, heading past Bilbao. The focus of our crew ‘happy hour’ (when we are all on deck together for one hour over lunch) was to construct a rudimentary air scoop system so that those off watch could open the forward hatch and get some air moving through the crew accommodation area which is already getting very stuffy. Rachel and I did this by taking the spare lee cloth off the lower hospital bunk, turning it upside down and lashing it to the jack stays on the deck so that no direct sunlight can shine down into the crew area and accidentally sun burn someone sleeping below. We then went to test the air scoop theory ourselves and went for a couple of hours of hard earned sleep. We have been getting back into the rythmn of boat life quickly, but night watches soon start to catch up with you and sleeping during the day is very easy.
We woke up at 5pm to find that the spinnaker had collapsed and that we had got our first ‘wrap’ – the head of the kite was wound so tightly around the inner forestay that it took us 3 hours to unwind it, putting two small holes in it in the process and having to knife one halyard that was too tightly trapped in the kite to get it out in one piece.
Luckily we managed to get the kite down, repaired and back up again before the sun went down but we have all been on edge for this last watch, rushing to the bow each time the kite collapses to check that it is not starting to knot itself up again. The challenge now will be to sail fast through the night and to make up on any ground lost during our
3 hour battle on the bow!
Lauren x
