All well. Have just passed Cap Sainte Marie at the southern tip of Madagascar. This is an exciting spot for sailing. We’re in the Southern Equatorial Current which is giving us a nice lift at about 1knot, but it’s also a wind acceleration zone so we’ve had 30kts of wind from behind, resulting in a boat speed of 9-10kts which is very fast for us. Zipping along in the dark with waves breaking all around makes for an exhilarating ride. The wind has been from the SE (over our port quarter) which has meant that we’re sailing with the jib poled out starboard to keep it full, and stop it flapping and shaking the whole rig. The main is right out to starboard too, with the boom held out by a preventer stay running to the bow. The jib boom is held by an uphaul, a foreguy and an aftguy, and there is an extra sheet (rope) attached to the jib running right aft to control the sail. All of this means a lot of string and restricts our ability to change course rapidly. This is one of the reasons why motor vessels still have to give way to sailing ones - and there are a lot of them about. We’re sailing right down the shipping lane with large vessels approaching us frequently. Our systems include a collision alarm which rings if one is going to come closer than 2nm, and it can work this out at about 10nm range. With a combined closing speed of about 30kts this doesn’t give us or them long to react. Big boats should see us on radar before this, realise that we’re a sailing boat, and adjust course slightly to give us the required 1nm separation distance. So far it’s all worked flawlessly, but it does keep you wide awake on watch!
700nm to go. ETA now Monday morning, perhaps Sunday - but very wind dependent.
