Over Halfway

Caramor - sailing around the world
Franco Ferrero / Kath Mcnulty
Wed 24 Feb 2016 17:55
51:31.7S 47:43.7W

The return from South Georgia to Stanley was always the part of our journey that I was least looking forward to, over 800 nautical miles against the prevalent westerlies of the 'fifties'. Since our brief spell of helpful winds we have been close hauled most of the time. When the direction you want to travel in is directly to windward you have to zig zag and you may only make 2NM in an hour even though you are travelling at 4 or 5 knots. We spent 12 hours hove to in a force 8 but as we were heaving to each night to reduce the risk of running into an iceberg we only lost 3 extra hours to the gale. Most of the time we are sailing in winds of between force 5 and 7. After 7 days we are a little over halfway there.

On the positive side, we are fairly sure we are clear of the bergs so we can sail through the night now, it is much less cold, and some of the time the wind shifts enough to point directly at the target. Hurrah!

Franco