Ascension Northwards - Day Ten 01 09.821N 033 22.562W
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Wed 23 Apr 2014 20:28
Being close hauled (genoa tight in) it was possible to check the bowlines attaching the sheets to the genoa. One knot was badly chaffed where the knot usually rests against the pole jaws when it's poled out. That's what having poles out for most of the 3,700 miles from Cape Town does. As our genoas are high cut, the knots are normally too high to get to, so by leaning out it was just within reach I was able to undo the bowline and end-to-end the sheet. So hopefully that will last at least the rest of this passage. If the winds stay north of east we probably won't use the poles too much more.
Being close hauled we are no longer rolling, but are on a constant lean. Each has it's good and bad points. As well as the wind being forward of the beam, so is the sea, so we're bashing into it, but with the light winds luckily there's nothing too much to bash into! The seas will get bigger as we get back into the trade winds (the NE Trades this time), but being so far out we should be able to bear away more and get a better angle on the waves. Hope so anyway.
As we're now so far west we've just put the clocks back 2 hours, so boat time is now GMT-2. That puts sunrise and sunset back to approximately where they're supposed to be! (The time on our radios - the VHF and SSB - stays on GMT and ensures we don't lose the plot completely!)
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