Round-the-world schoolboy doing well
Schoolboy sailor Mike Perham is making good progress and is now roughly on the same latitude with Bordeaux. Another day and he should be clear of Biscay which gave the Vendee Globe fleet such a pasting just 10 days ago.
Mike’s latest report on his website is as follows: ‘Wow what a day – I haven’t stopped – but I’m loving every minute of it! Last night was really tough as there were ships everywhere. It’s such a huge help to have AIS, radar and an active echo looking out for you. The strobe light was on and it was nice to see a fair few of the ships change course to allow me to pass by safely. Sleep was grabbed in 10 to 20min periods on the bean bag in the cuddy. A huge thank you to PIGBAGS who have supplied me with two of them.
Sunrise was very welcome as it brought some warmth back to the boat and gave me a much clearer view of what the surrounding ships were up to. After munching down some breakfast I had a big tidy up of Totallymoney.com and felt much better for it. Soon after doing this the wind picked up to a healthy 20 knots, and with the centre starboard ballast tank pumped full we took off at a steady 12 to 13knots. Unfortunately this didn’t last as the wind dropped right off and has been up and down throughout the day. Right down to a mere seven knots at times.
Around 5.30pm I was up on deck with one of the video cameras, just about to do a video blog and then, wow, I was once again joined by four or five dolphins and managed to get what I hope is some fantastic footage. Last time they visited the boat it was at night so I failed to get any shots of them whatsoever.
Progress right at this minute is painfully slow, six knots of boat speed in eight knots of wind. Open 50’s feel much more comfortable when they are powered up and bouncing over through the water. Anyway lot’s of things to do and I’m aiming for a little more sleep than last night so I’ll post again tomorrow and will answer some of your questions.’
Mike hopes , at age 16, to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop around the world in his chartered Open 50 Totallymoney.