17:53:3S 170:30:3E

 

Friday 26th June 2015

 

Disturbed Night

The wind has shifted again, where is the consistent Trade Wind? During the night we were running down wind the headsail was flogging and needed to be poled out, but I decided that could wait until the morning, we headed slightly off track to get a better angle, but the wind kept backing sending us further south. To get back dead down wind and back on track we furled the head sail, this slowed us down and we were eventually returned to the planned route. At first light we put the pole out for some serious down wind sailing. Peace at last! I went back to bed for a couple of hours and Simon took the helm, I had just returned to deck with a bowl of cereal when we jibed, the Aries self steering was jammed, one of the steering lines had shredded its sleeve and had stuck under the lowest block at sea level. Hanging upside down over the stern, with mole grips tied on and Simon doing a sterling job keeping us on track, eventually I prised the line free and replaced it. I hadn’t realised quite how often the waves lap up the transom / stern of WD.

 

miles travelled in 24hrs: 141 miles