Oliver Bailey. Blog day 11. Wednesday 17th Feb.
Wow, wow, wow! Big, big seas have tested us and we have come through, shaken but not stirred. No wonder the “normal” race leaves from the Canaries. The North Atlantic, even as far south as the west coat of Africa, is a large, scary place, but always beautiful. We have been so busy putting out fires we haven’t eaten or drunk any water for 36 hours.
Recent Problems (including trend) :
Water maker iffy from huge seas
Paraanchor twisted from huge seas
Auto helm haywire from huge seas
Flooded cabins from huge seas
Semi capsize after 30 footer blindsided us from huge seas
Life vests inflated in error from huge seas
The weather ; 27 knot winds crossing 30 ft swells, often in different directions. The wind chill and waves has encouraged us to wear full MPX ocean suits despite planning for rowing in nothing but a pair of pants at this latitude. We are proud to come through this (so far) as there have been two other ocean rowing boats less fortunate than us: our thoughts are with them and their families. Ocean rowing may not have the fatality rate of mountaineering, but it still incredibly dangerous and we have been safety conscious as possible.
On waking today, we were intent on leaving early to get out of the nightmare swell zone. To our dismay the para anchor had wrapped around the rudder overnight from the sheer force of swell and wind waves crashing down on us overnight. It’s just been too dangerous to be on deck at night with the force of this sea so we have had to batten down the hatches at 5.30 and spend 13 hours cramped up in tiny cabins.
In order to continue this morning , the rope needed to be freed from the rudder and someone needed to go in. A cold, black, raging sea early in the morning isn’t very appealing but our resident hero and frog man Foxy cooly jumped in naked, bar a pair of goggles and fixed the issue quickly. What a top bloke! We set off half an hour later and spotted land in the distance for the first time several hours after. It’s been incredibly frustrating for the team, the last ten days. Weather simply hasn’t been favourable at all and we wonder how quickly we could have reached our current way point if it were not for adverse conditions. We are still on course and can make progress once the sea state is calmer and we are rowing overnight again, but it feels like what could have been. I think its probably because we all have high expectations of ourselves and are fully committed to being the first team to conquer Europe to South America and do it in less than the 51 days or took a team last year to row from Lagos to Trinidad. We have the spirit and the brawn, the rest is down to the Gods.
The team are already discussing what we will eat and drink once we are back on the warm, inviting, dry land of Trinidad. We are all in agreement ; a creamy, but rum heavy pina colada and a bloody rare double beefburger with cheese, lots of cheese. Then we will head to our hotels and have a long hot shower and a lie down.
We miss many things, but somewhere warm and dry is at the top of the list. Feel free to make suggestions for things to make us feel better or remind us of home and send them to our social media. We will discuss them.