Still in the cloud of the convection zone but during the day it is high cirrus so hopefully a change for the better. No sign of rain or squalls but these can appear so quickly we don’t take anything for granted.

Yesterday evening the wind rose to 20kts at times so we put the third reef in the mainsail for the overnight passage. During the night we reefed the genoa further but, notwithstanding, in the early hours I couldn’t understand why we were only making 4.5kts. My first thought was that we might be dragging Sargasso weed around the rudders and the propellor. When motoring we often had to slow down and put the engine into reverse to clear weed from the prop. So I started the engine, went into reverse and forward gears and it made no difference to our speed. So, I let some more genoa out and whoosh, we shot up to 6kts. 

Today the wind has settled in the ENE at a steady 15kts or thereabouts. Our ideal set up for a long passage is a steady 15kts of wind from 120 degrees over the boat which ism a broad reach, two reefs in the mainsail and full genoa. This means we can forget about the mainsail overnight or if a squall comes through, the genoa is in balance with and not blanketed by the mainsail, and any reefing needed is just by rolling the genoa in or out. Even better is a following sea with waves less than 2m high with an interval of at least six seconds between the waves. Under such conditions we will gently roll along at 6kts and make good passage times. Today the conditions have been just as described and I was feeling very content until the wind dropped a little and our speed went down to five knots. I’d forgotten of course that we put the third reef in the mainsail last night. Tonight the wind is forecast to be a little higher than during the day but two reefs should be enough so Annie will let out the third reef before supper. If it stays like this we can stop fretting about the weather, resume our normal boat routines and enjoy the run up to Antigua.

The time on board Vega is UTC-2. This means it gets dark at about 7pm which suits us as we can have supper at 6pm and start the evening watches at 7.30pm. It also means that sunrise is at 6.30am which suits Annie’s sleep pattern. True local time is actually UTC-3 so you might think we are four hours behind UK time (UTC+1) but we choose not to be! There are several places in the world where the time line is permanently moved to the west or east to suit local circumstances. Ours is just a bit more flexible!

Our fresh water tanks hold 450 litres. We use around 30 litres per day but in addition we have 50 litres of drinking water in bottles, these days filled from our water maker. So we can keep going for up to three weeks before we need to refill and this is fine for most of our passages. If needs must we can get the water maker going on passage. However, we have always been aware of the amount of rain water we could be collecting. We can easily collect 20 litres an hour in buckets in the cockpit catching runoff from the bimini. The trouble is we have never been able to devise a practicable way of catching water when on passage. We have looked at various proprietary systems but none seem to fit. It is something we should perhaps have spent more time solving and I only mention it because, as our circumnavigation draws to a close, there are a number of things we are now thinking we could and should have done better. We tend to fall into our roles on Vega. For example I usually raise the mainsail and go forward to reef the sail with Annie remaining in the cockpit. She is not as confident or capable of handling the boat when entering or leaving marinas as she would like to be. Certainly we have not taken enough time to practice drills and routines and I bear the responsibility for this. Annie is not keen on sailing the passage across the North Atlantic to the Azores as this could be the most challenging and unpredictable passage we’ve made. Also we will have completed our circumnavigation when we are back in Antigua where we first arrived in January 2016. We have agreed that if we can find an experienced crew in Antigua to sail the North Atlantic passage with me then Annie will fly home for a couple of weeks and rejoin in the Azores. Crew sail across to the Caribbean from Europe with the ARC rally or on yacht delivery trips or to join racing boats (it is Antigua Week while we are there) and there may well be quite a few looking for a passage home.