Day 12 - Bermuda to Guernsey

Stravaig'n the Blue
Sun 5 Jun 2022 20:47
Position: 40:18.6 N 036:35.0 W
Position timestamp: Sunday 5 June 2022 14:00 (UTC-1)
Distance travelled in last 23 hours: 112 NM (average speed 4.9 knots)
Reduction in distance to destination: 85 NM
Shortest distance to destination: 1533 NM (great circle)

Good progress towards Flores, at the required speed.

The only problem with going so slow is that our hydrogenerator doesn’t produce enough electricity to keep the batteries topped up overnight. So the electric kettle is back in its box and the stove top kettle is seeing service again. Fresh water production (desalination) is also on hold.

We spent a few hours this afternoon experimenting with different sail combinations to see if we could achieve a situation where the hydrogenerator was generating sufficient electricity but we weren’t going so fast that we’d get to Flores in the middle of the night. The result is we are sailing with only a slightly furled headsail which is achieving a minimum of 6 knots of boat speed in the 20 to 25 knots of wind and generating about 10 amps, which is good enough.

If the sun had been shining today we would have been able to slow right down, let the solar panels charge the batteries, then speed up again overnight. (It has been suggested that I might be overthinking things.) But it has been a grey and dismal day with rain, drizzle, very low stratus cloud and poor visibility.

We crossed into the 37.5 to 22.5 W time zone yesterday afternoon so moved the clocks forward an hour at lunch time today. As with UTC-2, there aren’t many places in the world on UTC-1. Cape Verdes might be one of them.

There was brief excitement this morning when I spotted a whale breaching about 200m from the boat. The first time I only saw the splash and thought it might just be two waves coming from different directions colliding. But a few minutes later I saw the whale erupt from the sea before splashing down again. Linda was sound asleep so missed the spectacle.

All is well.

Allan