A series of incidents (wraps of one sort or another) kept our Code 2 (mediumweight spinnaker) and Yankee 1 yo-yo-ing up and down the mast yesterday, which meant a lot of work for everyone: hoisting, dropping, woolling, and packing...but not stitching, as we were lucky enough not to have any sail damage through all of that.
I have no idea how, but the Code 2 (mediumweight spinnaker) has been trawled through the South Atlantic, wrapped around the rigging, and twisted around itself without coming to any harm. Maybe King Neptune was pleased with our offerings back at the Equator.
What we did have was a tired and hungry crew, clamouring to be fed from the Nasdaq Bistro. I don't know whether it was the effect of all that work with the spinnaker, or the fact that we logged 6,000nM and passed our 1,000nM to go mark (two more huge milestones), but some kind of food-based mass hysteria broke out onboard. The bag containing yesterday's food ration had mysteriously disappeared, so Chefs of the day Ken Schatz and Pete Speight had to improvise quickly. Luckily, they had plenty of interested Bistro customers (led by Jon Wedgwood and Alex Weaver) to offer advice, suggestions, and assistance, and the results were confit du canard (a lesser known species of South Atlantic seabird often overlooked by other sailors). This was followed by an historic breaching of the 'strategic reserves' food locker - fig rolls and amaretto biscuits, and Star Wars ice pops.
Cheers, Rob.