San Blas Day 4 - Real trade wind sailing
Caduceus
Martin and Elizabeth Bevan
Sun 12 Jan 2014 21:37
Date 1200 (EST) Sunday 12 January 2014
Approximately 190nm south of Kingston, Jamaica, 340nm from the San Bas
Islands
Days run 172nm - Distance over the ground 169nm
When we crossed the Atlantic in 2010 the fabled trade winds by and large
deserted us. It is wonderful that at last we are running the trade winds,
or more accurately reaching across them. We have kept the sail plan as it
was yesterday, treble reefed genoa, main and mizzen with a full staysail,
giving us an average of over 7 knots. We could go faster with more genoa
but this rig is giving us a good speed and without the more violent motion
that greater speed would give, taking into account the beam sea that is
running. It also copes well with the 30 knot gusts that from time to time
appear to keep us on our toes.
Our destination is some 60nm east of the Panama Canal and this is well borne
out by the steady stream of commercial shipping running both ways 5 to 10
miles to our west between Panama and our last waypoint which was 25nm east
of the very dangerous Morant Cays. This is of a great advantage to us as
had we been going directly to Panama we would have spent our time dodging
shipping.
The power has held up well and we have gone thirty two hours without the
requirement to generate to charge batteries. We have had fairly ideal
conditions for this but nevertheless it bodes well for the future.