Day Five - Storm over Gotland

Blog Day 5 by Blue Watch

The first six hours of the day where spent doing sail changes as we rounded the island of Bornholm – mizzen staysail down, spinnaker replaced with the big number one genoa, and then finally the genoa being peeled back for the spinnaker again. We then hoisted the mizzen staysail again. Nearly every sail in the locker had been used before breakfast… By breakfast the cruising chute was raised, dropped and replaced by the genoa AGAIN. To keep ourselves awake, a new drink was invented… the Moccachino – one spoon of hot choc, and one spoon of instant coffee.

A hard morning of deckwatch was rewarded with a welcome surprise breakfast of pancakes served for breakfast thanks to Jonny’s ingredients and Oli’s pancake flipping skills, perfected on the 23^rd attempt. This was in spite of a 20 degree tilt of the boat which forced the cooker to be tilted as far forward as it could be.

There were strong winds throughout the day, gusting to 27 knots at points. White watch’s self-proclaimed ‘flawless’ run of headsail changes came to a spectacular end when they decided that the cruising chute needed cleaning in the Baltic. Most would have thought that these events would lower the standard of food, but blue watch would in fact go on to raise the bar in gobsmacking fashion.
Throughout the day Mother watch provided chocolate rice crispy cakes complete with a Malteaser on top; chicken curry for lunch with dough balls and focaccia; Tom & Jerry cupcakes which were iced inventively as a result of the tilt of the boat; before finally serving up an amazing beef stew. It was not only extraordinarily tasty, but was provided with an unexpected twist: Harry and Ben dressed up with shirts and pink bowties and cummerbunds. This was considered highly entertaining by the crew, mainly because the shirts were Harry’s and Ben was ‘slightly’ bigger than Harry and so the buttons on the shirt were not far from popping off of Ben’s shirt.

Shortly after dinner, we would hear through the radio that we currently sat in second position within our class.

By 10pm there was a nasty electrical storm brewing over Gotland.

Apart from the Baltic storm brewing outside, the final noteworthy event (which could be described as a storm in a teacup) before the end of the day was a squabble between Andy and George for a bunk which would last almost twenty minutes before both were told to find a bunk elsewhere anyway.