The Spirit of Cardiff adventurers still battle large seas and unpleasant conditions...
The Spirit of Cardiff adventurers still battle large seas and unpleasant conditions… Clive Tully reports:
“It’s amazing just how much energy remains in water long after the force which stirred it up has past. The winds, forecast at around 15 knots, are actually negligible, but the seas are big, with 25-foot swells still remaining from the previous few days’ storm. Not just small fishing boats but even large ships seem to appear from nowhere.
The first few hours out of Miyazaki see us with a massive tide pushing us along. The engine is barely ticking over, and yet we’re racing along at 20 knots. We’re still reeling, pleasantly, from the boundless generosity of our friends in Miyazaki, and feasting on the packet of Frosties which formed part of their pack of goodies to see us on our way.
As the sun comes up on Sunday morning, the sea has flattened off considerably, and we’re still maintaining 20 knots, now with a little more assistance from our Yamaha diesel engine than the tide. At this rate, we should be in Choshi (about 60 miles east of Tokyo) by early evening. Unfortunately we have to wait until Monday morning to refuel and get the boat lifted out of the water for servicing.
But at least it means a decent night’s sleep unbroken by going on watch, although again we have to suffer the frustration of delay imposed by other peoples’ working hours. If money had been no object for Spirit of Cardiff, we could have made our refuelling stops much, much quicker, thus giving us more time to play with in the quest to break the Cable & Wireless Adventurer’s round the world record.
But at the moment, what’s going through our minds is not so much how quickly we can bring the boat home. It’s whether we can at all…”
