Today we wanted to say Hi to 3 schools – Josh’s at Donhead, Rebecca’s at Ursuline Prep, and where Chris’s sister Mrs Duncan teaches - Dove House School. Hi to all of you and thanks for watching us!

 

Current position "26:32.50N 16:59.42W". Looking at yesterday’s blog I think there may have been an input error in the position – apologies! Anyway, we’re working our way south towards the Cape Verde islands – we won’t go quite as far as them, but make a turn to the West about 200 nm [nautical miles] away from the farthest East island (Santo Antao). Since yesterday’s blog we had lots of changing fortunes; as we sought to hoist the spinnaker we found a twist in it – it the got wrapped around the mainsail lines. We managed to get it down safely, re-pack it and then launch – but by this time the wind had died such that we weren’t able to safely fly it (otherwise one risks tangling it and tearing it) and had to sit for an hour or so at 1 knot or less. Later the wind came up, and then down again in the middle of the night, then back up. We now have the spinnaker up and are making 7-9 knots plus.

 

We got our first position from the ARC Race Control. It looks like the gamble we made staying close to Gran Canaria worked in the sense that, as far as I can tell from the jumble of Lon/ Lat positions of others I’ve been sent, we’re towards the front of the pack – if well behind the serious racers  (who have serious racing boats and are heavily crewed for action!). We’re a 45 footer but seem to have spent the night crossing paths with 50-60 footers. That said, it looks like we’re more in the middle of the pack when they apply the handicap. For this as a cruising boat our handicap looks rather aggressive, but no matter.

 

For navigation we’re seeking to do everything this trip by traditional means, i.e. position fixes from the land when it was available, and since then we “dead reckon” which means plotting a position based on the course taken and the  distance travelled. We then fine-tune that by taking positions using the sextant which measures the angle to a “heavenly body” – usually the sun, can be the moon or other planets and starts. Having done that I need to wade through pages of tables and calculations and hope I got it right. I took one “sun sight” this morning which looks to be about 8 nm from our position (if I do a sneak check with the GPS satellite position system). That’s pretty good going; let’s see whether we can maintain it!

 

Attached pictures were taken about 30 mins ago and show us sailing under spinnaker, in slightly lighters winds than we have now, but going along well.