Wednesday September 15th
Position 57′ 25″N 07′ 38″ E
Course: 198′ T Speed: 11 Kts Days run: 254 miles
Wind: Direction 254’T Speed 40-45 Kts
Weather: Overcast and windy
News
After all that beating up wind the crew have been enjoying the off the wind work and the smooth ride throughout the evening. At about 20:30 we had a pretty good squall that blasted through with lots of rain. We put a third reef in the main and switched from genoa to staysail as one gust reached 52kts and it started to sleet. At 01:00 Timoneer passed the Northern end of Denmark and the port of Skagen where we made a short stop when we entered the Baltic a month ago. Our course from there is almost due West and the breeze was still southerly as we entered the Skagerrak. We opted to motor sail west as the weather indicated the breeze was going to fill in from the North West. The idea was to have a little room off the shallow banks on the North West corner of Denmark and be able to bear off when the new breeze filled in. The barometer continued to drop throughout the morning and at about 05:00 bottomed out at 994 milibars, so we knew we were in for a bit of trouble. At 07:00 the breeze was blowing 12kts by noon it was blowing 40-45 kts, we added the third reef in the main and 2nd reef in the staysail.
John