We were up at 4am for a 5am departure, the sun had not risen yet but there was fair amount of light as we slipped the lines and headed out of the small port. Once we were clear of the bay on which Tasiilaq was located it we were on one heading to Reykjavik. Winds were too light to sail but we did raise mainsail as a steady sail. Even in very light winds when motoring some sails up will help steady the boat.
My diary comments on how cold it felt at 5am close to 0°. I was glad I had written a diary throughout the trip as it has given me details, I would never have remembered otherwise. Roman the mate one day asked if he would get a mention in my memoir, I said yes Roman you have several mentions.
The mainsail is so heavy on this boat that you need to use the windlass capstan to raise the sail. The boat has slab reefing, and the foresails are all kept-on deck as there is no roller reefing.
We saw more whales in the distance as we continued away from the coast with a very nice sunrise.
One of my watch tried heading off to bed at 8am and was very disappointed to be reminded we still had another hour to go! Our watch finished at 9am. We were motoring into a 12kn headwind in calm sea. 12kn on any point of sail would be too light winds for GS as it is a large heavy boat.
GS was built by Graham Lascelles on the Isle of Wight as his personal yacht to sail around the world with his family. It was heavily specified 70ft long, displacement 45 tonnes. It has 140kg anchor and 80m of heavy duty chain all internal doors through bulkheads are watertight doors, water capacity 2,200l in three tanks and a130hp engine. The original builder and owner has a website with details of the vessel. He has also published a book available on amazon called “All I ask is a Tall ship”.
After my watch finished at 9am I went back to bed and slept until late morning as I was not due on watch again until the 3pm-6pm watch. We could still see the last icebergs nearly 60 miles offshore late afternoon but as they did not show on radar, we had no idea of their distance from us.
