en route to Plymouth for the start

Well, we're on our way! All ship-shape and heading our way overnight to Plymouth. Little wind and what there is, is currently on the nose, so th "donkey" is doing its work. Should be in Plymouth by lunchtime Tues. Richie is first watch, so nite nite!
Trev

Pixie gets the last laugh

What a shower! Tried to tighten up the connector to stop the leak. It
shears off rendering the whole thing useless except to pump out water
by the gallon. No spares at the Chandlers and wooden bungs all to big
to plug the hose. I can hear the Pixie laughing......

"Piskie" found stealing a shower

The Pixie may be a nuisance, but at least he's clean! The cause of the
leak was finally traced back, past the engine, to the external shower
head. Guess the minx had been having a shower. And given that it comes
from the fresh water tank, we could have been losing several
bucketfulls each day - potentially serious on a long race.

Richard
The Pixie Hunter"

Tracking the "Piskie"

Am convinced Jangada's Pixie lives in the stern locker behind the
engine. After bursts of the bilge pump next to my ear waking me up
every hour, I set out to trace the leak. So far I have tracked it as
far as the engine room where a slow but steady trickle of water is
seeping out under the pipes. Without removing the engine, I'm not sure
where to go from here. Must be that damn Pixie pissing on us,
frustrated by our efforts to spoil his fun. After all, his attempts
to steal items have been thwarted by our "Pixie proof" bags. Mind you,
that didn't stop him pulling the USB keyboard lead out the back of the
PC yesterday. Looks like the next six weeks is going to be quite a
challenge, if not against mother nature, then against that damn Piskie!

Richard

SORC training with Brian Tompson

After a few hours setting up the boat and fiddling with the instruments, we set off for our “short-handed tricks” weekend, led by Brian Thompson. The rendezvous on Friday night in the lightship at Haslar marina was not hard to spot – nor were the other attendees. Four of the eight crews were our competitors for the RBI – as was Pip Hare, one of our instructors! I grabbed an early night, having a bad case of jet lag, which made me feel a bit of a party-pooper, but at least I was reasonably fresh the following morning. We gathered for a briefing and learned our fate – two days of more manoeuvres that we would normally do in a whole race, packed into just a few hours. The weekend passed in a bit of a daze – and I’m still not sure if was due to timezonitis or simply exhaustion. We covered everything from short-handed tacking to gibing the kite – no mean feat if you don’t use the autohelm! We made a thorough nusance of ourselves on the Swashway offPortsmouth, even managing to stop the hovercraft at one point (oops – but not us personally, I think). As well as giving us some really valuable tips, our instructors, Brian, Pip and Paul Peggs also facilitated useful de-briefs, where we and our fellow attendees analysed performance, assisted by videos of our mastery and cock-ups, also bringing our own experience to the discussions. We also benefitted from an illuminating talk by Chris Tibbs. Although I came back pretty tired, it was a very valuable experience that should stand us in good stead for the big race.

Trevor