Day Four - a stormy night

Tripled
Sat 11 Jun 2011 00:09
At 0000 UTC our position is 44:12.3N 19:59.8W, we are sailing at 6.2 knots with the wind from behind at 19 knots. We have two reefs in and I'm currently playing with the idea of taking one out and perhaps rolling the jib away as it has been backing quite a bit. The problem with a self-tacking jib is that it makes such a loud noise rolling across the track that I feel sorry for Andy trying to sleep!

We have had an awesome day today. Winds of 20-25 knots all day, although it has been very grey. James had a go at steering, as did Andy. Andy was desperate to get up to 10 knots and managed 10.6, the fastest Trips has ever gone. Although he was very disappointed when our autohelm managed to get close with 10.4. All year when we have said how much we use the autohelm, people say "oh, the man on board?!" wink wink, etc. Well no, our autohelm is quite firmly a woman, probably quite like Triple D so we imagine her to be quite short and stocky. Andy has named her 'mystery girl' (which always puts Peter Andre into my head) and is having quite a competition with her this week! The seas are meant to be building so maybe Andy will get 11 knots tomorrow. As mum always said "you can do anything if you put your mind to it"!!!!

The evening and into the night has been less good, that tricky area where you can't decide what to do with the sails, especially as we like to be careful at night and I would rather not leave Andy having to put a reef in by himself. Also, a huge squall enveloped us at the beginning of the shifts at 10pm, and it has been raining now for hours. But then, we have done a lot of sailing this year and haven't had a night quite as wet as this one yet so that's not too bad! Finally our oilies are getting their money's worth.

We now actually have some current with us which is great. And the wind is meant to stay up at least for tomorrow - also good news! I better go as the jib is flapping around a lot and probably waking Andy up as it slams down the track. Definately time to do something with the sails!!!