Blog 20th June
Nightsong
Sun 20 Jun 2010 12:13
|
Dear Blog
Midday position 43.23N 11.28W
Well that was another good run - 167 miles or 7
knots average - ok I cheated for 3 hours when the wind dropped light by
motoring. Had a bad night with constant wind shifts (between 30 deg and 75 deg
off our head) and wind strength changes (12 to 20 knots apparent). I was up and
down like a yoyo - at one point when I had been asleep I woke to find us about
to gybe - luckily in time. The wind has now come in from the NNE and I
have taken 1 reef - I expect to have to take another or maybe 2 by tonight if
the forecast is right. Gribs have been amazingly good again. The great thing is
that now we are closehauled in a proper constant wind she is sailing herself
without locking the wheels. One can praise the designer, Jason Ker, for that
if not much else! All the other good features of this boat are
Northshore standard.
The attached shows our position at about 0800hrs
this morning
 You will see from the cursor that I have put over
Coruna that I had 156 miles to go at a bearing of 83 deg. I put in that other
waypoint off Coruna because of the forecast North Easterlies and the Portugal
current. This is running south at about 1 knot by my calculation. However I have
decided to cross the 11 deg longitude even further north than that so that it is
not too much of a struggle to get into Coruna Ria - so I will be 15nm north of
this waypoint. And crossing the Cape Finisterre separation
zones correctly at right angles you boring yachtmasters!!
It has been strange to have nobody to talk to for a
week. I wake up sometimes and look out into the cockpit (I'm sleepin or what
passes for it on the central maincabin bunk) and think that the outboard motor
with the ensign behind it s somebody there, on watch. I am waiting for the
nagger to remind me to get my lifejacket on before I go on deck! and there is
nobody to be grumpy with! But it is nice to keep irregular hours and eat when
hungry. A big lonely ocean the Atlantic - sad not to have seen a single dolphin
to keep me company.
Should be in Coruna by the middle of the day
tomorrow sometime - the morning if I don't have to tack, the afternoon if I do.
Funnily enough of the 5 boats I have sailed in over the last few years, 3 of
them are now within 100 miles of each other. Apart from Nightsong , Sarah and
Tony's Malo 39 Ione is in Bayona and John Harkness' Hallberg Rassy 43
Radiance in Coruna too. Only Kevin Parker's Beneteau 40 Skye in Mallorca
and Christopher McCann's Oyster 45 Merlyn somewhere in the Med exotic, no
doubt, are missing. What a coincidence after all the 000's of miles each of us
have sailed!!
AFB 20th June 2010
|