A race
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Sun 10 Jun 2012 20:42
It's going better than I had hoped for. The forecast was for 7-12kn of wind, shifting SE to NE. And that's exactly what we have so far. Predominantly SE winds, except for the afternoons when it's NE. So we're mostly sailing close-hauled at 30 to 60 degrees apparent wind angle at 4 to 7kn of speed. That can be uncomfortable, but the see is so calm that we even have the hatch open at the front most of the time, and the wind is so light that the boat hardly heels.
Yesterday a 6pm, just before sunset, I made out sails on the horizon west of us, at 258 degrees. As usually I got very excited and ran for the camera, but the sailboat was over the horizon and so I only captured the top half of it's sails. Then I lost it in the background of clouds. Half an hour later, after sunset, I saw it's navigation light just over the horizon. This time at 265 degrees, falling behind. One boat is sailing, two boats and it's a race .
The night was quiet, no squalls. Liz and I are doing watches in our usual shifts. Liz in the morning and evening, me in the afternoon and the night. At the other times we're sleeping, reading, or talking about what it will be like in NZ.
312nm to go