Tradewind Sailing Again - 7th May

Vega
Hugh and Annie
Mon 8 May 2017 00:31
10:09.4S 126:45.1W
Beautiful bright moonlight last night and 20kts+ breeze at times. We reefed the genoa down and rolled along happily at around 6kts. It was so nice I stayed up in the cockpit to enjoy the experience for an hour or so. The sleeping beauty actually slept so I covered some of her 0000 - 0300 watch. The only snag is I slept well also and missed some of Annie's excursions to the cockpit.
The wind is variable in strength at the moment. Last night it was strong and by the morning we had a big following sea that I photographed for the blog. Unfortunately photographs always flatten the size of the waves and many a time I have taken a picture of what felt like the Roaring Forties only to find that on the image it looks more like Blagdon reservoir. Anyway we were making good, if rolly, progress under just the genoa. At these times you think you are homing in on your destination only to find with the noon position that you have covered disappointingly little ground in 24 hours. To midday today it was only 119nm. It is only rarely that you get consistently fast conditions and our expectations have been heightened by the first week of this passage. Also we only measure our straight line distance. We usually sail further than this but because it is difficult to sail in a straight line (for various reasons, one of which is that the wind - even the trade wind - oscillates in direction and if we are steering by the Hydovane our course will follow that of the wind unless we intervene) our course on the plotter usually looks more like a drunken stroll than a 100m dash.
There seems to be a correlation between the times I write this diary when in the cockpit and the loss of Annie's fishing lures. Our technique is to tie the fishing line to a loop of bungee that is then hooked over a winch. The theory is that the bungee takes up the shock of the initial strike, allowing the hook to take hold before taking the strain on the line itself. Just now I heard the line move, watched the bungee stretch and felt the pushpit shake as the bungee was stretched to the point at which the strain was taken the line and which immediately broke. This is thick nylon handline - much thicker than you would have with a rod and reel. This morning we heard from the catamaran Jadean that they had caught a tuna yesterday that was 1.3m long. This is bigger than the previous biggest they have caught and that weighed 77kg!! They had to stop the boat and let the fish tire itself out before they could get it on board. There was so much tuna they gave half to another yacht in the vicinity. Probably just as well our line broke...........

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