Day 5 of Lazy Dawn's ocean passage
Lazydawn
Fri 25 Nov 2005 14:59
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Another good 24hrs of sailing, covering
136miles. We have made good progress SW. Despite periods of very light winds
yesterday, we managed to keep above 3 knots at all times. We kept the kite up
over night as the wind picked up steadily, keeping as dead down wind a course as
we could, trying to avoid heading too far west. Once all up we gybed the
spinnaker and are making 8 - 9 knots with the spinnaker and 2 reefs in
the main, surfing down the waves in glorious sunshine. (For those
sailors amongst you, Skip wanted me to point out that it was our second
faultless dip pole gybe with 3 of us in 20knots of breeze.....!) We will
hopefully stay on this gybe now and are heading in the direction of
the Cape Verde islands. This is further south than we had planned but are
being advised by the ARC office to maintain a southerly course even until
possibly past the C.V islands to keep clear of the Tropical Storm, which is now
developing into a Hurricane! Lazy Dawn always finds the bad weather!! So
much for the 'Trades' now not expected to arrive until next week.......so much
for an under 20day passage! That being said, she is performing sweetly, loving
the broad reach we are now on. According to Jeff (Dyson senior) who is sending
us a daily position report via satellite text, we are 7th in our class and 66th
overall ......remembering of course that this takes no account of engine hours
which you have to declare.....so who knows, but we have only done 12 hrs
motoring in total since we started and none at all since Wednesday.
We have had further good banter with nearby yachts
on VHF, especially 'Annie K' a sunsail cat who we passed with our kite up,
whilst watching another episode of '24', which we enjoyed! Unfortunately
this morning, we have heard nothing on VHF, so we can only assume no other
yacht is within 25 miles approx of us. We have also communicated
with friends by satellite phone,Bob and Gill sailing AlterEgo a Hallberg
Rassy 54.They, as expected, are miles ahead of us, and not in VHF range. Despite
our difference in size we have been put in the same division, although they
are at the top and we are at the bottom thankfully. The "ARC" appear to rate
this boat as a good performer across the Atlantic - lets hope so
:-)
Updates:
China mugs, now bravely we have 8, are all still
in tact
Still no fish :-(
Still no showers - need to feel we have made some
progress west first! Oh for short hair like the boys :-(
'24' getting very exciting - Half way through
series 2. Please don't give anything away
Not baked bread yet
No one taking sea sickness pills including
me!
Chloe the clown fish has left Antony the autopilot
to do the job alone for today. Thanks to Pete we now have 'Antony' set on wind
vane mode, so rather than following the compass course, it follows the wind
angle - And we admit it, he's better than any of us, so as long as the
battery will allow, we let him get on with it!
Must go - Pete has made a Chilli for lunch (from
fresh vacuum packed meat ofcourse) :-)
Thanks for all your support, satellite phone text
messages and emails, they are much appreciated.
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