Re: Blue Wonder - Monday 6th December
Rapier 550 on tour
Mark Jarvis
Mon 6 Dec 2021 18:20
|
15 55N 55 35W
We had good first 24 hours with the parasail up and
clocked 230 miles in 24 hours to break the record for miles in a single day for
this boat. The night hours were quite difficult with gusts to 27 knots in the
dark and boat speeds up to 17 knots but the combination of autopilot and
"Trade-Wind" keels on this boat meant that even when the waves caught her she
quickly recovered and was sure footed throughout.
The maximum draft for the keels is only a little ahead
of the rudders and this provides an enormous amount of stability for fast
downwind sailing. Although the boat is available in dagger board, LAR or
Trade-Wind keel configurations, the owner of this one opted for
the Trade-Wind keel because he expected to use it for trips like this
one.
This fantastic downwind performance has jumped us
up the leader board by 5 places and has begun to offset the handicap we have
been under since we blew out the asymmetric spinnaker. The forecast is for
heavier winds again tonight and so we are expecting to drop the
parasail around dusk and run through the night with a smaller sail plan, hoping
to go back to a larger one when the dawn arrives.
Our ETA now looks like it will be sometime on the 8th
December, which is pretty much what we expected to do before we damaged a sail
so not so bad.
|
