Atlantic Crossing Day 10  - Wednesday 8^th March 2023

Last night was a case of wallowing around, making good about 1.9 kn SOG. Pathetic I hear – and I agree, totally. However, fuel conservation vs DTG is paramount. We decided to have an engineless night so we could sleep well, which we both did (well in comparative terms at least). At 0630 I started the engine and set it a bit less than 1400rpm, the new prop seems to like these revs and we generally make 5 kn in reasonably flat water. At 0930 with the batteries fully charged, the holding tank pumped out and all manner of things charged up, I switched on the water-maker. This is the first time we have used the water-maker in anger, although we have cared for it – regularly pickled it, changed its oil and its seals etc etc. It’s output is pretty good, nearly 7 litres per hour, which from a relatively small DC unit is great. The main thing is that we can make enough water to keep up with the mate’s consumption of it  J.

We’ve just had our first taste of the water the water-maker produces. Not bad! - we are pleasantly surprised. Stargazer has to be one of the luckiest Firsts around as everyone who knows us knows how much work we’ve done on her and the previous two owners did a huge amount too. I mention this, as a previous owner emailed us recently (they found us on Mailasail) and we are so pleased with the water maker that they  installed (the plumbing and centre tank are brand new by us, but follow the same layout) that if they read this, we want to say thanks! As long as we can power up the batteries without the duogen, our water issues are solved.

My temporary repair on the engine anti-syphon valve seems to be holding up (and the engine’s been running for four hours now) so that’s more good news.

Whilst I’ve been doing all this below, the mate has found a little breeze. OK it’s only 8 knots, but that’s 7 knots more than we had before. It is coming beam on from the south east (we are heading south west as the gribs tell us there will be more wind 30NM south from Friday onwards. However, the current wind is almost sailable. Sadly this means a lot of changing things around with poles, dropping the number 4, changing sheets and guys over – all because we would never expect wind from the SE on this passage (nor would any other sensible person). So, we’ll weigh up how long it’s all going to take vs whether or not we think the breeze will hold.

We ended up with dropping the number 4 and poling out the genoa, believing it too light to faff around with the kite. Mostly we were able to sail about 4kn SOG, which is much better than nothing (and better than I thought we would). By 1400, the breeze had died to nothing, so we just wallowed around making some, but very little, progress. The diurnal pressure changes have been quite large for the entire crossing thus far – some 8Mb per day, so we expect a breeze, however slight, to build around 1800 for a time, so we’ll keep the genoa up and poled out. Given plenty of diesel, we would motor, but the sun is shining brightly (it is very hot) and the solar panels are now dumping power – so it isn’t sensible to use the engine at times like this when diesel needs to be conserved. If it’s still light when we are a couple of days out from St Lucia then we’d have no problem motoring in, but not from here as its too far. Speaking of distance, our last 24 hours run was a ‘miserable’ 65NM – I’m embarrassed to say it, but 65NM it is. I was telling people back in Cabo Verde how quick Firsts were and how I expected 14 to 15 days with 16 as a maximum for the crossing. I fear that I am beginning to look foolish…

However, with all this light wind and drifting, we have been able to relax again and lounge and read in the cockpit. The air temperature has been 35 degrees, the instruments tell us that the water temperature is 27 degrees (it certainly makes the Sargasso weed sprout). The sea is beautifully blue, it’s not easy to describe how wonderful it looks, and the sun is hot, the mate makes up a shade but I just sit there with my hat on.

Tonight we’ll motor from 1930 until 2300 to make some way and then drift (saving diesel) until 0600 when we’ll motor again for a few hours and make some water.

So, after a peaceful day, we’ll hopefully have another night of good sleep and let’s see what tomorrow brings…