25:18.2N 18:25.8W

 

Well its business as usual down here in the trades, the really icky stuff has gone been replaced by a consistent 18 - 22kt winds and we are making good time being conservative at night and letting rip a bit more during the day. We are all struggling a little bit with the rough seas though and look forward to getting further south where we believe they moderate a little. But we are all at last into a good sleep pattern( I managed 6 hours last night and plan a few more during the day) and last night we started happy hour, 2 small beers each!! Kirsty wasn't up to hers so in solidarity me and Steve drank them! And we had curry ... a Birmingham navy dream!

The boat is working well under 2 genoas and we will continue to use this as it means less work for us all.

To explain to those interested. Boats like Jon Jon have a main sail (one at the back) and a fore sail (one at the front) and they balance each other out. However down wind the main sail masks the front sail so you need to do something different. We can put one sail on one side and one on the other (goosewing) but if the wind picks up you can find it difficult to pull the main down like that. Especially at night. What we are doing is having 2 front sails and none at the back, its a classic set up for down wind. We roll a bit but not much and once all the big genoa is out we go like stink and if we see something big and black coming behind us we simply roll it away. We can only do this dead down wind though so if the wind veers we have to go a little off course....fortunately this only happens on Kirsty's shifts who has the least luck seemingly with the weather.

Speaking of luck, Sods law dictates if something can go wrong it will. Interesting law and one I will now demonstrate applies in sailing more than anywhere.... Its not a case of if your instruments will fail on a boat but when. The main thing to do if they do is not panic go back to basics (compass and chartwork) and then get the problem sorted. This has never happened on Jon Jon, but last night I saw a ship about 4 miles away. It is hard to make out ships at night because of the swell but when I did it was clear it might be heading our way. I went down below to turn on chartplotter and radar and as they came on, they all went off everything. No radar, no plotter no gps no AIS. It meant in the dark getting torches out and finding cables behind the panels, whilst dealing with a ship in close quarters. No problem really!!! but it goes to show how unlucky you can get.

The plan for passage is to head south west to about 300 miles off Cape Verdes and then turn right once the butter has melted so to speak. This will be about monday, then we have 14/15 days across the pond. When we smell rum we are there!!! This is a lot truer then you think, in days of old ships used to carry a pig, as they approached islands at night to make sure they were going in the right direction they threw a pig on a rope over the side. Pigs love mollasses and can smell them miles away and so would swim towards them thus telling the sailors which way to go!!! We haven’t got a pig...(no comments please) so we will be using my nose that can sniff out a pub a mile away!!

Well suns out again.... getting occasional windy lumpy bits but we are settling down and doing well. Next update tomorrow or day after, instruments willing!!!

 

Kirsty and Lee