Nearly at Suwarrow
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Fri 18 May 2012 05:51
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13:30.6S 161:41.5W 627 miles covered, 85 miles
to go
The last couple of days have been light wind days,
which do not suit Anastasia very well. Yesterday we had one two hour
period where some heavy clouds passed over and brought 20 knots of wind, which
meant we could surf the waves for a while, but it didn't last for long enough to
make a difference. Sublime to ridiculous, it was followed by an overnight
spell of zero wind which had us motoring for seven hours.
Today the wind has been veering north and south and
we have had to switch spinnakers several times, which is sweaty work in the
middle of the day. Overnight we don't try and change the spinnaker, we
just go where the wind takes us and sort out our course during the
day.
It is annoying to have to switch between Parasailor
and asymmetric spinnaker as the wind angle changes, so today
I experimented with flying the Parasailor off the bowsprit like an
asymmetric. My cunning plan was to switch the Parasailor between
symmetric and asymmetric modes on the fly, without having to snuff one sail and
launch another. This did not work well. Switching modes is
pretty straightforward but the Parasailor wing prevents the leading edge from
cutting through the wind like a true asymmetric so you really can't use it in
that way.
Andrea has been beavering away, cleaning the boat,
polishing the stainless steel, baking bread, making ice cream and yogurt,
cooking sumptious meals, doing crosswords and making some KumiHimo bracelets in
her spare time. This leaves me feeling rather guilty, since it was my turn
to clean our toilet and I had been avoiding doing it for a couple of weeks
now.
We arrive in Suwarrow sometime tomorrow
morning. At our current rate of progress it will be about 6 am so we may
have to hang around for a while until it is light enough to see the pass through
the reef clearly enough to go in.
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