Zooming along "14:35.30N 51:56.37W"

VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sat 11 Dec 2010 11:57
Zooming along indeed, at last. For the last couple of days we have been sailng about 7 knots, 24/7, giving us a DMG (distance made good, i.e. distance towards the destination) of about 160-180nm per day (we have actually sailed more than this, because we are only rarely able to point where we want to go). Today looks good too; we're bowling along in the sunshine at 7-9 knots. we're going a bit to much to the south but we can easily correct thi by gybing tomorrow. We have at last got enough wind to fly our downwind sails (two jibs on the forestay, one either side of the boat. The smaller one is held out with the spinnaker pole while the larger one, the 'genoa', flies free. We should have been able to use this rig for almost the entire crossing had the winds only behaved themselves, in which case we'd be relaxing on the beach in St lucia with a pina colada by now. But better late than never.
ETA at Rodney Bay St Lucia now sometime on Tuesday afternoon (wind permitting, of course!)
All well here; Joe has not injured himself at all recently and now his burn has almost completely disappeared (due to excellent First Aid by the highly trained crew, of course) he must be due another life threatening disaster - his life story reveals a long history. He has used up many more than nine lives already.