Leg 3 Day 16 - 16th December
Posted by Della Parsons on Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Leg 3 Day 16 - 16th December
I didn't sleep very well last night and woke up drenched in sweat – it seems I had got the cold bug now! Grabbed a couple of paracetemol from Piers – asking if he needed to pull my ear first (the medical check he used on everything – his own special Doctor Dudin signature treatment). He said no but he might pull my leg instead. No change there then!
Night watch – was very wet, pretty cold and very bouncy! We are still trucking along at 10 – 11 knots. I loved being on the helm – the challenge of keeping the course and trying to get the highest possible consistent speeds to GKHFX! GKHFX stands for Get Katy Home For Xmas and was part of a campaign Piers had started a couple of days ago to give us some focus on driving hard to Geraldton. Both Katy and John had very personal reasons for wanting to be with their families for Christmas and Piers, having done the number crunching, declared that if we maintained a 10 knot speed average we should get in for the evening of 22nd December. Our recent lights winds and motoring had now meant we needed a 10.5 knot average and with more light winds forecast we knew we had to push as hard as we could when the conditions were favourable.
So I helmed my heart out with this in mind. I was just shy of the elusive 12 knots, getting one 11.9 and loads of high 11.7s and 11.8s. Pretty good – but good enough and could we keep it going? Only time will tell.
I didn't sleep very well last night and woke up drenched in sweat – it seems I had got the cold bug now! Grabbed a couple of paracetemol from Piers – asking if he needed to pull my ear first (the medical check he used on everything – his own special Doctor Dudin signature treatment). He said no but he might pull my leg instead. No change there then!
Night watch – was very wet, pretty cold and very bouncy! We are still trucking along at 10 – 11 knots. I loved being on the helm – the challenge of keeping the course and trying to get the highest possible consistent speeds to GKHFX! GKHFX stands for Get Katy Home For Xmas and was part of a campaign Piers had started a couple of days ago to give us some focus on driving hard to Geraldton. Both Katy and John had very personal reasons for wanting to be with their families for Christmas and Piers, having done the number crunching, declared that if we maintained a 10 knot speed average we should get in for the evening of 22nd December. Our recent lights winds and motoring had now meant we needed a 10.5 knot average and with more light winds forecast we knew we had to push as hard as we could when the conditions were favourable.
So I helmed my heart out with this in mind. I was just shy of the elusive 12 knots, getting one 11.9 and loads of high 11.7s and 11.8s. Pretty good – but good enough and could we keep it going? Only time will tell.
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