1/4 of the way

African Innovation
AJ
Fri 7 May 2010 18:00
The mood onboard AI is very good, now that we have wind and can cruise along without having to worry about using the engines.
 
Right now we have the small gennaker hoisted and are doing between 5.5 - 7 knots SOG.
 
To look at day 5:
 
We logged 167 nm of which 166 brough us closer to Hiva Oa.
Our average speed was 6.9 knots
We ran the engine for 1 hours.
Average wind speed was around 15 knots
At 18:00 yesterday we had 2344 nm to go before we make landfall.
 
Right now we have 2239 nm to go, which means that we have sailed 750 nm of the total distance, putting us 1/4 of the way there. We celebrated with a cup of tea. Tonight I'm going to dig into my candy stash and celebrate with a Twix bar :-)
 
Day 5 has been our best so far. Day 6 looks to be slower, mostly because we had to lower the gennaker, because the waves were getting big and angry and hitting us straight on the beam, so we opted for a slower, but more comfortable ride last night and sailed using only the genoa. We still did over 6 knots, so we aren't complaining.
 
Today is my day "off" ... Every 5 days, we do two night shifts and then have the following day off, so today I'm lounging, reading and enjoying my crossing.
 
The book is calling ...
 
- Andreas
3:32.51S 101:58.21W