New speed record
PASSEPARTOUT
Christopher & Nirit Slaney
Tue 17 May 2011 15:08
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A Magical Night
When my son Tomer , who is sailing the 60 ft Nira in the
western Med, wrote to us and said he is averaging 9 knots I wrote back to
point out that our Passepartout does not see such numbers. Partly
because we do not like to push it to the limit with all the associated strain on
rigging and crew fatigue. For this reason
we already had three reefs in the main and flew the staysail rather
than the genoa while we were having dinner last
night. Throughout the day we had been poring over charts and wondering where we
would meet the gulf stream again. And then suddenly we
were there.
Passepartout shot forward like a rocket and in no
time our speed was a steady 9.5 knots! It's been like
this for ten hours and all indications are that it could last for another
ten. Add to that the full moon, 20-28 knots of
wind speed, the Atlantic sky and enormous waves and it's an
unbelievable ride. I hope today will bring some calmer
conditions so we can get ready for another low that is supposed
to catch up with us in the evening.
At time of writing we still have some 240 miles
still to go to Newport RI. We are also around thirty degrees off course but
expect the wind to back south east and help sort that out.
The tracker should now be working properly and an
alternate link is at,
http://live.adventuretracking.com/atlanticcup2011-2 Nirit, 17 May at 1500
UTC |