Lia and her third hand

Lia Ditton updates us from mid-Atlantic on the Faraday Mill OSTAR

Lia has once again been completing her maintenance jobs as the boat shows its wear and tear, after nearly three weeks of non-stop sailing:

The little people trapped running in the arrows are glowing in the dark. They point towards the Muster Station family who are all present and correctly mustered above the survival hatch, with illuminated 'O ring heads spelling the word 'Ooo'. So the Muster Station sticker appears to be lasting the duration. The 'Now Wash Your Hands!' sticker that was stuck just beside the stove, on the other hand, is long since gone. I believe it had steamed itself off by the end of meal two. On the Open 40 Spirit of Canada, which I refitted at one point with the intention of doing this race, I had placed a large 'Dangerous When Wet!' sticker in the cockpit. It was baby blue in colour and triangular with the standard flame symbol meaning 'Hazard!' 'Dangerous When Wet,' I thought was a great sticker for a boat, especially with a completely incongruous flame symbol in baby blue. It was given to me as good luck, by yard workers at the terminal in Halifax, Nova Scotia from where I shipped the boat back to the UK. 'Dangerous when wet,' is what I am starting to become with salt sores. They have sprung up like mushrooms; around my elbows, ankles, between my fingers, toes and at the base of my back. I am becoming a contender for the cartoon, 'The Itchy and Scratchy Show,' imitating a dog that has flees.The answer of course is 'Now Wash Your Hands!' but with 850 miles left to go, it is still a little early to be utilising ['The Precious'] drinking water for the luxury of an on deck shower. In any case, the extent of my 'product range,' ends at Ecover Washing up liquid which I purchased for an alternative use of its bottle.
 
On Raymarine TV  [the Raymarine C70 Chart Plotter], it is a delight to finally be seeing land and the big black monohull together, on the same screen. Whereas on deck, for the second day running, there is nothing to see; Shockwave is wading her way through another fog bank. 'Open on the Grand Banks,' read the package [of the 2,500 mile Treasure-hunt series] I found in a pocket beside the generator. It was a bar of Galaxy chocolate. Yes, it was ONCE a bar of Galaxy chocolate, alas it didn't quite make it to the Grand Banks. The chunks had lost their definition and re-grouped at the bottom of the packet to construct more of a slide of chocolate, rather than a bar. Like the chocolate you pick up in a petrol station, which has lived for a while in a fridge, then sat on a shelf, the chocolate had also turned white. Like the fog bank parked above me, it seemed to say, 'There's no Galaxy here.' Still, when rationing has begun [I cant eat Frieze dried food without reconstituting it with hot water, for which you need a functioning stove] chocolate is chocolate and I have still been eating it merrily.
 
The voltage on my battery monitor spent yesterday falling more dramatically than in the tidal rule of 12ths. Even after unwiring and re-wiring every unit in isolation, the cause of this exasperating power draw still remains a mystery. I am not entirely convinced that there is a problem, since the autopilot is now wired directly to the batteries and not via the shunt of the battery monitor, so there is greater battery output than the battery monitor may monitor. Still, I've never had the voltage drop below 12V before. This small level of panic [no power = autopilot malfunction = no sleep = Lia malfunction] led finally [hallelujah!] to motivation to fix the wind generator.
 
How to save Gennifer has occupied my waking moments for the past several days. During the low front that took me out of the running for over two days, I was peering out of the hatch when a piece of rubber shot down the pole of the wind generator. Genny's head at this point cocked to one side [like the Barbie doll that your brother has given a broken neck] and began to flop back and forward like a rag doll. 'Ill just dash on deck and save the piece of rubber,' may be one's instinct, but in gale force winds, driving rain and a rollercoaster sea, one doesn't just 'dash on deck.' One scrambles into mid-layers, into foulies, boots, hat, lifejacket and clips harness tether to the back stay just as the rubber piece which had so far been waiting patiently for a rescue, decides to slip into the sea. My thoughts quickly turned to preventing total decapitation of Genny's head, by somehow securing a line through the tail that revolves as Genny angles her face into the wind. But like a two year old trying to post a pencil through a letter box, it was annoyingly some 3ft out of arm range, even while precariously on tip toes at the end of the sugar scoop [stern taper of the main hull]. Eventually, I rigged up an ingenious [...don't berate yourself, but don't applaud yourself too much either- If you succeed in this, tell ME how...' I am reminded of lyrics from the Baz Luhrman song again] fishing rod contraption using 'Bob' the boat hook. The boat hook has become refered to as 'Bob', not simply because it floats, but because the only sensible stowage option for Bob, was ontop of the stretcher bunk pole, i.e in bed with Lia. Anyhow, Bob is taken out of bed and the line is fed through tape loops along its length. The spare Raymarine Rudder Reference rod was then taped to the end of the line running up the boat hook, which now acting as a pully could be angled and fed through Genny's tail slot. And so with Genny's tail lashed down, Genny's head had managed to remain on top of the pole, 'sqwif' like a medieval criminal, for the past few days.   
 
Now adding a new packer, preferably rubber and tightening up the allen-head bolts, involved unscrewing the base of the wind Geny tripod and lowering the whole set-up onto the deck. If I had said, 'I'll never be able to hoist the jib up the foil by myself,' I had also said, 'I'll never be able to lower the wind generator down by myself.' Luckily what we think is impossible, seldom is and so I had been inventing ways of getting up to Geny [lash the two waterproof flare drums together to make steps?] or [Tarzan-style climb up on a halyard and pull myself out to Geny using a line?] in order to get her back up and running again. Neither option could be catagorised exactly as 'practical,' yet the 'Conventional' unscrew tripod base-method, which left the blades still slicing the air better than a £24.99 Carrot and Apple dicer off the Shopping Channel, posed a distinct danger-factor too. 

'Sieze the moment!' I did, as the wind dipped down to 6 knots apparent. Lia could be found crouching knee deep in water off the back of the sugar scoop. Where's Andy Dare on the bow when you need him most?! (During a similar operation in Plymouth before the start, Andy was dispatched to the bow thus bringing the stern out of the water on the lightweight trimaran ). Trying to undo screws, albeit self-taping while being immersed in the Atlantic's finest chilled mineral water is like diving for a brick in a swimming pool with your eyes shut. But to quote another great English expression, 'I held my nose and thought of England,' and moving onto the second screw driver, I got on with the job in hand. With the screw driver in one and the socket in the other hand, the only logical safe place for the tripod screws, had been what Bernard Stamm had exemplified as the 'Third Hand.' So it was with more metal in my mouth than James Bond's 'Jaws,' that I leant into the cockpit to spit out my algae-covered [Ugh!] metal teeth. It was of great relief to be able to rinse out my mouth, when the wind generator was finally down. Thankfully, Lia's tether to the running back stay had narrowly avoided a few wobbles [Geny's head is not light] from turning it into a Lia/Geny waking-boarding event and my task then was a quick-fix and stick her back up again, preferably before the wind got up. I had given some serious thought as to what I could use as a replacement packer, but what I really needed was another piece of rubber. No sooner had I thought this, than I find myself staring at the bucket. 'Nooo. Lia Nooo!' [Its a little tricky to 'bucket and chuck-it,' without first the bucket!] The bucket in question, with 10ml thick rubber sides is probably the best, most industrial [we like that word aboard Shockwave] bucket that I have EVER come across. But the textured rubber was ideal and so the best bucket ever, alas went under the knife. Now I really have a hole in my bucket, dear Lizer!