Location: Approx 600 miles north of the 5/10 ice pack of Antarctica. 1200 nautical miles SE of the Chatham Islands 1800 miles since we left Auckland 3200 sailing miles to Cape Horn
Day's Run: (24 hours) 195 nautical miles
Sunday November 19th, 2000
1030 hours: We’ve just un-reefed up to full sail as the wind eases back and the sea evens out. The sky is overcast grey, but with the occasional distant ray of watery sunshine striking the surface of the grey sea, and patches of washed-out blue appearing overhead. But we don’t think the cloud cover is very thick and hope it will burn off later in the day. The barograph continues its stupendous rise–now over 40 millibars in the past 24 hours. This is an extraordinary difference in atmospheric pressure in such a short time, something I have never experienced at sea before. We were lucky to only have winds of between 50 and 60 knots yesterday, as the pressure gradient could have produced far more.
Breakfast today was porridge - a fruit variety and very good, with (for me) milk and golden syrup. Followed by toast and (another) cup of tea or coffee. The albatross were fed some of the porridge left-overs but didn’t seem too impressed.
Don and I are now in the communications room, me working on this log and Don sorting out 2 photos to send today they are an external view of the bare aluminium pilot house taken from behind, and another of the crew in action hoisting the foresail soon after breakfast. The watertight door that we close when the weather is very severe or cold can be seen on the right of the entranceway. The rim of the closing wheel is covered in marlin twine - a tar impregnated cord, so that when we are in sub zero temperatures, we will not have our hands “stick” to the aluminium wheel when we operate it (and cause a cold-burn very like one from a hot surface). The ladders in parts of the vessel that are not heated are treated the same way, as are some of the external hand-holds. Right now we are not having to use our heaters at all – the heat from the sun, even on a cloudy day, coming in through the big double-thickness lexan windows in the saloon and the pilot house warm the whole interior of Seamaster, and it stays that way overnight.
Yesterday afternoon was particularly pleasant with the sun streaming and the day warmish despite a cool wind. Alistair and Jeanno replaced all of the broken sail sliders from the gale, and we were able to hoist the foresail again. Jeanno was also hoisted to the top of the foremast to make a small repair. There was still quite a roll at the time and he made sure his harness was very secure for “the ride”. The view, he said, was fantastic.
Sir Peter Blake
"Having vision is not enough. Change comes through realising the vision and turning it into a reality. It is easy to espouse worthy goals, values and policies; the hard part is implementation."
Learn about Sir Peter Blake and his journeys around the globe
