Saturday 13th May
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Sat 13 May 2017 14:47
The GRIB files seem so far at least to have been accurate and it’s currently SW 7 with occasional short spells of F8, and raining hard. But a front is forecast to come through sometime in the next 8 hours or so, bringing a shift to lighter westerly winds, and probably clear skies. But Awelina is doing fine under just the staysail at the moment. We had the main up, albeit very reefed, all night but the seas are now big enough that an accidental gybe was possible, especially when the confused seas and wind direction of the cold front arrive so we took it down completely an hour or so ago.
We are in the company - not that we can see them - of two other yachts, Indigo from Sweden and Joyce from the UK, and are sharing weather forecasts.
Despite the (near) gale today is a day of celebration as we have changed chart from the West N Atlantic one to the East North Atlantic one. It’s always cheering when the chart no longer shows the point of departure, but instead shows the destination - still nearly 800 miles away, but at least daily points marked on it now get closer to some land-fall. The chart shows home as well, but then it also shows Gabon and Norway so it’s not exactly detailed!