goose winged!

Philippides III
Chris & Carol Jackson
Tue 17 Jun 2008 04:31

 0100 17th June. Everybody seems to have settled back into the routine now and we are getting more sleep. Wind has backed from North to due West and we are sailing goose winged, with the genoa poled out to starboard and the main held out to port with a preventer, we have been sailing all day like this, both sails reefed, and are making a good 7 knots most of the time, although with the slight reduction in wind that we always seem to experience at night, we are down to 6 knots, still a fair pace and reasonably comfortable too, which is always a bonus. Weather still pleasant enough, with blue skies and occasional cloudy patches, no rain to speak of and cool in the shade but still very warm in the sunshine. We are all extremely surprised by the poor GPS coverage, at present the GPS has been off air for 2 hours, at this rate we will have to resort to dead reckoning to establish our position. Herb and his weather net on the radio has been fairly unsuccessful over the past couple of days with poor reception although we believe he can hear us ok. I downloaded a grib file via the satellite telephone yesterday and the next couple of days look good with Westerly winds continuing at around 15 knots. Can we be lucky enough to get these great sailing conditions right across to the Azores? Our fingers are firmly crossed. At present we have 1400 miles to The Azores, we should pass the quarter way mark around midday today, at this rate we may reach Horta in 12 days, that would be great, I told everyone 14 to 18.

Chris
 
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