Current position "14:17.6N 56:16.0W”. Well we had a beautiful if non-productive night. By late evening there was no wind, meaning 0.0 knots and 0.0 knots boat speed. The water looked like glass. So much so that Byron and James took a swim remained no wind whatsoever until about 2am when we picked up a few knots of wind and about 2.5 knots boat speed.

 

We looked at the ARC weather bulletin this am which looked reasonably optimistic. Looking at a downloaded forecast with more accuracy shows we’re in a dead zone – this is the one we were tracking S to try to get around a few days ago, but obviously we didn’t quite make it! the ARC forecast shows average conditions for the square we’re in, but it has a range of winds within it, from zippo (us) to reasonable winds rather S of St Lucia. So we’ve now altered course S to try and pick up some wind about 30 nm south of us as there isn’t any here and no prospect of any for about 30 hours! By doping so we’ve brought the wind more on our beam and so pushed the boat speed up to 3.5 knots or so.

 

Looking at the positions bulletin it’s clear that the race boats still out there have similar problems to us, but many cruisers are doing 5-6 knots i.e. they are using their engines. We’ve debated it this am and decided to stay purists – we’re crossing the Atlantic under sail!

 

It’s clearly uncertain how the wind will pick up or not and hence when we arrive; 9-10 knots of wind for us means 5 –6 knots boat speed where 5 knots means about 1.5 knots boat speed – the difference being 2-3 days in terms of ETA in St Lucia. But our guess if Friday some time. Let’s see!

 

So again we’re in v light winds and had to come up with new entertainment. Today’s version was to inflate the dinghy and launch off the stern with the outboard, and then Graham to zip around Clearlake II taking shots while she gently sails along with the cruising chute up. All executed successfully – see pics.