First week at sea.
Moondancer
Sun 30 Nov 2008 17:15
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Today we have been at sea seven days, and have just
gone through 1000 miles sailed, we have also today less than 2000 to go. The
wind related decision to stay close to the Cape Verde Isles like many of the
rest of the fleet means that our crossing will be closer to 3000 miles than the
2800 we expected, this coupled with a some light days at the start of last week,
mean that we will not be looking at a quick crossing even now that we seem to
have found some wind. We will not go short of food though and still seem to
have an enormous amount of fresh to get through ' before it goes
off' , so fishing is back on hold again.
On the positive front no-one seems to have had time
to be bored maybe that will change by the end of next week. Part of the reason
seems to be that days are short even if the climate is anything but
wintery.
Our mileage seems to be gradually increasing,
yesterday we had the full spinnaker up until dusk in about 16 knots of breeze
making good time, we then replaced this with the poled out genoa and full main.
After a couple of quieter hours the wind gradually filled in until at 4am it was
all hands on deck to reef the main after the wind just topped 30 knots. Whatever
happened to reef early! We had been able to keep the sail up as going straight
downwind, it was a very bouncy ride, a bit like being on a fairground ride
inside a washing machine. We had several hours at 8 or 9 knots of boat
speed and a new record set for Moondancer of 11.4 knots.
Today the winds gradually subsided and we got the
reef out mid-morning, since then steady if not fast progress, but now
at least heading almost at St Lucia, so our daily distances to go should start
falling more quickly.
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