On our way across the Pacific

Exocet Strike
John & Stella Dyer
Fri 6 Mar 2015 03:22
Yesterday was the start of the leg from Galapagos to the Marquesas, 3000 nautical miles. We have a start for all the boats, a fun racing type start which we have won on two out of three occasions, yesterday we made it three out of four, nailed it again.
then off in a SSW direction to try to get past the region of squally weather that is in our route. The various forecasts showed that there might not be too much wind on the first and second days, so we were delighted with 10 to 12 knots of wind on our beam, ideal conditions. It di get light an confused at one point and we had to motoer for all of 17 mins, then put up our Code Zero sail, like a huge Genoa, worked perfectly, thanks to the design work of Peter Sanders at Sanders Sails. We have managed to sail most of today until this afternoon, when the wind dropped then built again, so it was engine on, engine off, and now its on again. We do need to make progress south, then we should get trrade winds from the East orSE of 14 to 17 knots which should be very pleasant. Currently on squall alert, there have been a number today, we have skirted them and thus missed the worst of the rainand wind, so far so good.
John