The joy of sextant,,,,,,,

DAY FOUR BLOG

DAY 4 - 28th November 2007

Position: 25º 11' N 24º 00' W
Bearing: 260º
Distance to go: 2190 Nm

2 minutes into our 02.00 watch and we carried out our first gybe...with the wind shifting a bit further to the East our heading was edging towards 300º rather than the desired 270º. With Julian and Kate both on deck we made short work of a difficult manoeuvre with the genoa still poled out. As we settled into the watch talk inevitably turned to ghost stories as it was dark and we are currently in the middle of nowhere. My attempts at passing the time with some knot practise didn't quite work out as the rest of the watch felt that none of my masterful knots were any use to anyone on a boat!

The good news is Jeremy is feeling much better and we now have some more great humour to contend with when we're on watch. I've been impressed with the way he hasn't complained but worked hard to acclimatise bit by bit and it's paid off, so welcome to the watch Jeremy.

We changed watches at 06.00 with a more favourable wind shift which gave A watch their first taste of sailing with a spinnaker. They worked very hard for a couple of hours even in the slight drizzle which accompanied the low cloud. They also kindly gybed at the end of their watch as we came on deck for our afternoon shift.

The afternoon was spent continuing our on/off relationship with celestial navigation. Kate (2nd mate) and myself were assisting Mark with ongoing calculations. Our conclusion was two-fold, the first being that sailors 200 hundred years ago were very, very clever, and the second that we should have done the five-day clelestial navigation course before we left the UK. Undaunted, we persevered and finally concluded we were in the Atlantic. At least we weren't on dry land. Stand by for a position any day now.

We are keeping our position in the head of the fleet really well and are continuing to open a lead over many boats close behind us. The rhumb line is still delivering the goods.

The gourmet kitchen, ably run by Susie is continuing to produce some fantastic food and tonight's Thai Red curry was received with gusto.

As we all get more used to the sleeping patterns both watches are beginning to mix in the afternoons and we're getting to know the guys on A watch quite well. No doubt resident joker Billy will appear more than once in this log.

We had some really consistent winds from the evening giving us an average 8.5 knots in the right direction. It's quite exciting to be speeding along in the pitch black just trying to feel for the swell as it comes up behind you.

No ghost stories on the watch tonight. Scaredy cats.

From the left, Tim, Marc, Steve with the camera, Jeremy helming and
Dave the watchleader on the right.

You can track the progress of Northern Child, which is updated every hour, on their web site at: northernchild.com