ARC Day 15 - Reaching Towards the Finish - 16:36 N 48:50 W
Neki
Sun 5 Dec 2010 19:20
finally filled in and are between 11 - 15 knots of NE winds. This is a great
point of sail and everyone slept well last night again. We decided to use
some more fuel and run the Air Conditioners again which are a very welcome
treat now that we are in the tropics. The wind changed to an East wind today
so we did some downwind sailing and tried ALL of our sails. We took down the
Dolphin Cruising Chute and flew the Doyle Spinnaker for a while. The wind
kicked up to 17 knots and the sail really showed its value. Alas, the wind
tapered off to a meek 8 - 10 knots so we tried the Parasailor. This worked
well but flies without the mainsail. With the main down the boat speed
dropped to around 5 knots for a while. The wind is back up and we are
closing the day with the Cruising Chute back up.
It was HOT, HOT, HOT today. The sun was a blistering sphere of radiation
that had us all cowering for even a little bit of shade. With 4 sail changes
today it was hard to stay out of the sun so we all suffered some. The
liberal application of 100 SPF sunscreen was encouraged so I think we made
it thru the day without any major sun burns.
We are under 700 miles to go and it's looking like and early morning
Thursday finish for NEKI and crew.
