Friday 12th of May
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Fri 12 May 2017 14:27
Still quite pleasant weather and we’re bowling along on a broad reach at 8 knots. The wind got up a bit yesterday afternoon and we put in two reefs, but by just before dusk it had fallen off a bit so we contrived a first reef to bypass the broken rope. It worked quite well, but then in the middle of the night we had to put reef #2 back in anyway. We need to reduce sail again fairly soon, so it will be the yankee which gets partially furled.
Our strategy is to stick on the 32nd parallel until the cold front from the atlantic depression passes us, as we expect it will in the small hours of Sunday, and then alter course back to the NE toward the Azores. We have been joined by another yacht, a Halberg Rassy 49 called ‘Indigo’ from Sweden. They are doing exactly the same as us and are keeping station about 2 miles behind us. Last night a third yacht came past, but we never saw it except on AIS. They are heading a bit more northerly than us and were going very fast at over 9 knots. Now to download a new GRIB file…