700 miles from… New Caledonia.
The Race for Water crew is gradually making its way towards New Caledonia, now some 700 miles away. The catamaran powered by a combination of clean energies: the sun, the wind and the ocean, is expected to arrive in Lifou on Wednesday 30 January. Today’s anecdote: the boat global position is equidistant to and from her port of registry in Lorient! :-)
Annabelle Boudinot, second in command, share’s her ship’s log from this week.
Sunday 20:
It’s cloudy and at around 4:00pm it was ‘literally’ bucketing down. We thought we’d be able to admire a fine sunset from the enclosure, but that’ll have to be for another time! This is especially true given that the cross swell is moving in fairly quickly. We’re finishing stowing all the essentials safely. A little bit of something to line sensitive stomachs and very soon all those off watch head for their bunks!
Monday 21:
No wind, slight 0.5m swell, partial sunshine. A little less cloud and proper conditions for a solar-powered boat!
As the weather is a little cloudy and is likely to remain the same tomorrow, our attention turns to the energy. A little less air conditioning, but not too much… so it’s hot aboard Race for Water! Each time you go down into the floats, you work up a good sweat. The reward for very calm weather: we treat ourselves to a quick ‘dip’ in the afternoon!
Tuesday 22:
The 15 to 20 knots of wind is still beam on with a rough sea. We’re being shaken up a bit!
This morning, we had a fire drill with a search for people in the laboratory. The training went very well, but Anne and Margaux got hot in the suits….
In the late afternoon, we noticed that the port rudder was behaving strangely and one of the rams had detached itself. After two unsuccessful attempts, we managed to block it along the centreline for the night.
Wednesday 23:
The sky has cleared; we’ve got our fingers crossed for glorious sunshine!
We’ve been able to reconnect the ram to the rudder element and get it up and running again.
The strongish wind is still beam on.
Thursday 24:
The sun has been blazing, which is fortunate because this morning the batteries were very low! However, they’re nicely back up to power now!! Phew!
That said, the day’s been packed with all kinds of exercises:
– A successful man overboard drill and with everyone in their allotted position the manoeuvre only took a matter of minutes.
-Hoisting of the kite in the late afternoon. The wind angle wasn’t favourable so we just flew it and landed it twice in a row, which was an opportunity for Basile and I to get back into the swing of things, and for Margaux to test the console. We didn’t tow the boat as it would have taken us too far off course. However, it seemed worthwhile to complete a training session.
