Passage Report 3
Noon Position 24 deg 51’N. 032 deg 35’W
Course – 260Degrees Speed – 10 Knots Day’s Run – 270 Miles
Weather – Clearing finally
Wind – 15 knots from South
We have had some fairly robust weather, including 12 hours of lightning on Monday night, rain of biblical proportions and a couple of very fast days.
This chart shows the weather situation developing on Tuesday morning, 3 days out of the Canaries. Our choice had been to head way south to avoid the worst (a lot more miles) or use the helpful, but strong SE winds. We chose the latter route and had some very exciting sailing. Using only a reefed genoa (or sometimes just the staysail,) and the mizzen sail, for 2 days we surfed some big Atlantic seas at speeds up to 15 knots. Actually, the highest recorded surf was 15.9 knots. In 2 days we covered 545 miles. Soups and stews were the order of the day as working below (and particularly in the galley) was challenging!
I had hoped to skirt around the north of the system to keep the wind behind us and avoid the headwinds further south. What happened was that the area of no wind expanded and enveloped us and we are now motoring in the light and variable conditions which stretch for hundreds of miles.
Time to get the lines out again!
Peter and crew
