News from the fleet
Fryd
Halfway to Rio, and I think it is time for some reflections of the race so far.
Apart from having to retrieve to Saldanha Bay and carry out some 18 hours of repair and the fact that our whole Raymarine system including the autopilot went dead and we had to perform some stressful rewiring and reprogramming mid ocean, we are now settling in into the rolling rhythm of ocean sailing.
Andrew and I are sailing Fryd shorthanded.
For those of you not so well inaugurated into the world of sailing, sailing shorthanded doesn’t mean that we have particularly short hands., like Andrew and I would have our hands sticking right out of our shoulders.
On the very contrary, Andrew and I are two perfectly built males in our very best age.
No, sailing shorthanded means that we are only the two of us aboard, and we simply have, at the very most, our four hands available for sailing the yacht. That is not much to drive a 42 foot racer/cruiser in a race across the south Atlantic. And, when it comes to carrying out manoeuvres such gybing, changing spinnakers, steering, navigating etc, we are often short of hands and as such we must plan our manoeuvres very carefully. This also means that we must sail more conservatively, respect each other’s rest periods, plan sail change, gybes etc, well in advance, and in harder winds carry less sail than a fully crewed with plenty of hands can afford to do.
On the other hand, the two of us are constantly busy and there are few idle periods like it is for bigger crews. Also, we do not have any HR issues among crew to deal with, and the boat is mostly a peaceful and quite place without a lot of unnecessary chit chat talking.
Andrew and I have done quite a bit of sailing together and we enjoy and respect each other’s company.
Beyond the necessary conversations about how we are sailing Fryd, routing, weather issues and what to have for dinner, Andrew and I don’t talk very much to each other during the some 20 days of ocean crossing, that the Cape2Rio Race represents.
I guess there are several reasons for this.
We know each other quite well. We are focused on the sailing. And, then there is of course the gender aspect. In contrary to women, who constantly must conversate to prove their existence. Men, like Andrew and I, simply prove our existence by being.
However, as we were enjoying our dinner the other day, mostly in silence, or peacefully, as we would like to describe it, I suddenly asked Andrew what the first thing he wants to do when we get to Rio.
– Visit a brothel, he immediately responded.
– A brothel! Well, that interesting thought, I quickly responded. Do you have any good address?
– No, I am joking, he said. I am going to visit a church.
– A church??? Do you even know what kind of church they have in Brazil, I commented.
– I want to visit a church with a beautiful female priest and thank her for getting us safely over the ocean, Andrew replied.
– Well, I don’t know too much about female priests in Brazil, but you know that they have a very fine religion there, I said. In short, we can first go to a brothel, then the next day, we visit a church and ask the priest for forgiveness of our sins.
– Wow, that is fantastic, Andew replied. Do you think that goes for my wife as well?
– Not sure, I replied, but consider that God will forgive you, and I can’t imagine that your wife sees herself above God, so I guess that would be ok.
Then there was silence for quite some time, until Andrew once again opened his mouth and said that we should stop talking and just keep sailing. We didn’t talk more to each other the rest of the day.
The next morning, however, as we briefly greeted each other during the watch change, I gave him my suggestion what to do, once sailing into Rio.
How about the first thing we do in Rio is to go to Ipanema and check out the women there.
Deal, Andrew commented,
– Yes, let’s go to Ipanema and look for that famous Ipanema girl that Stan Getz made famous. I am sure she is older by now, but what the hell, so are we!
So, to all you beautiful Ipanema women, be prepared for two perfectly built, well-aged shorthand sailors coming to town. We don’t speak Portuguese very well, but that doesn’t matter, do we don’t talk very much anyway!
Rio de Janeiro, ai vamos nós !
African Skimmer
We are roughly halfway across the Atlantic now but maybe a bit further on time given how much distance north we have travelled to reach the latitude of Rio (and a bit beyond to follow the favourable winds). Sailing was challenging last night as it was completely overcast and there was no moonlight or stars to guide us. We were forced to rely solely on our instruments (compass and Windex) which is more tricky than just following a star. You also can’t see the waves coming up behind you which tend to throw one off course every 10 s or so, cause the sails to collapse or worse, force a broach. We got through the night though and are now enjoying a nice sun shiny day with a modest (10-12 knot) breeze. Really looking forward to the sights and sounds of Rio….
