36:30N 54:27W

1232 miles to Horta

Well yesterday will go down as a truly horrible day.  The squalls were replaced by a full on front, several thick banks of cloud and rain which stopped the wind and left us in a very sloppy uncomfortable sea.  Even Alan spent most of the day down below.  The fronts had been very slow moving but more to the north so we could outrun them.  Last night we got one we could no longer outrun so to put ourselves out of our misery we decided to motor back west for about an hour to try to get to the other side of it.  It initially looked quite thin on the radar but I think that might be because the radar can only see 6miles into rain.

We are now behind the front in light winds of around 10 knots but sailing at 6 knots with a much calmer sea and it is lovely.  As the sun rises everything is starting to dry out.  Yesterday everything was permanently damp down below, I think we must have been in the cloud.  While Alan is asleep I am drying all his clothes on deck, I can’t really complain as he did most of the work yesterday but he seems to have worn and soaked 3 different jackets!

According to the GRIBs (the weather forecast we download on the sat phone) we will have to overtake this front at some point but for now we  will appreciate the calmer seas and clear skies.

We are potentially not in a hurry as yesterdays GRIBs showed a nasty low developing on 10^th June with average winds of up to 55 knots right where we would be if we continued on our current track.  Not something we want to mess with.  It moves very quickly from south to north so we can’t avoid it by heading north or south ourselves.  Other than slowing down we’re really not sure what to do so we will see what today’s download shows and invest in some professional weather routing advice from Commanders.  We have tried listening into Herb on SSB but the propagation is too bad.

Just looked at the latest GRIBs and it still looks nasty!

I have been hiding down below again as the sun didn’t last long and reading all the old emails from everyone else.  Suddenly I am jealous of you all motoring in flat calm.  You also, especially Triple D, seemed to see loads of dolphins, we have seen none, although I suppose it would help if I looked out a bit more often.

Position at 1300 UTC

36˚ 30N

54˚ 27W

Wind:               115˚T/16

COG / SOG    045˚T / 6.0