Heading north.

LIBERTAD
Paul Huntley
Sun 14 Jun 2009 10:21
44:02N 21:34W
Sunday 14th June 2009
44:02N 21:34W

Sunday 14th June 2009

Good morning to you all, we are still rocketing along at more than seven knots most of the time, our average speed is now 6:4 knots, it has been hard to rest in these boisterous conditions with very large seas of seven to ten meters in height with the odd rouge breaking over us or putting us on our ear. We have a heavily reefed main but in between squalls we are flying full Genoa, when a squall hits it brings heavy rain and gusts in excess of 40 knots.

Life on board is difficult to say the least, cooking meals is the hardest task but, despite this Drew cooked breaded chicken breasts with fresh vegetables last night,

We have been keeping company with a small group of yachts that have been on our track, but this morning they have disappeared possible making for La Coruna. We are making good progress to the north east, our log now shows 462 nm of 1100nm completed that’s 638 nm to run if my muddled mind is not playing tricks with me.

We picked up our first Navtex from St Morgan in Cornwall this morning and it tells me that you are not enjoying that promised long hot summer. I hope we will be towing a little Bermudian sunshine behind us.

I am on my morning watch from 08:00 to 10:00 Guy is in the cockpit supping his first coffee of the day but Drew and Lucien have taken to their bunks again once their watch duty finished.

There are many things that have to be done on a regular basis, we log and plot our position, track and course every hour and record that in the ships log, the management of our power supplies has to be monitored, I am running the generator about one to one and a half hours twice a day. We are consuming about 170 amp hours over twenty four hours, this is being topped up by the wind generator continuously but needs a boost of the diesel generator.

We monitor channel 16 on VHF and the Navtex is producing regular updates of navigational warnings and weather information from a Varity of stations within range.

Well the change of watch has come (good morning Drew) so I will sign off until the next time.

Best wishes to you all from the crew of Libertad.