One sleep to go...day 28 - 38:15.467N 31:24.378W

Voyage of Wanderingstar
Ben Bonnick
Wed 9 May 2018 09:44
I've got 130 miles until Horta which at 4 knots is 32 hours. Local time 9am + 32 hours = 5pm Thursday. It gets dark 10pm so I’ve 5 hours contingency. In addition I’m probably doing 4.5 knots and likely to be doing 4.5-5.5 knots tomorrow when the wind picks up.

Fuel - I’ve got 60 litres contingency (I’ve used 40) and still got 1/4 tank so 40 litres in tank. I do 2 miles per litre, so if I motor all the way I'll need 65 litres and I’ve got a total of 100 litres off fuel available. I will top up tank with 40 litres of contingency fuel at 12pm today. Also I only expect to need to motor for another 12 hours as wind picks up about 10pm tonight.

Some areas of concern:

1. will the good old work horse the 40 year old BUKH 24 (engine) keep going. I have every confidence I her, she got me to Antigua ok, she’s motored 24 hours yesterday without any problems. This morning I checked her over and topped her up with some oil although she didn’t really need it and I have deliberately taken the load off, so I'm probably at 70-75% and able to motor sail at the moment.

2. I'm expecting some fresher weather tomorrow with some strong winds from the SWW. Hmmm, I’m keeping a watchful eye on those winds but…they will be in the right direction helping me along, they are probably not much stronger than the winds I had when I left Antigua and by mid day they should be starting to reduce…..

So, all in all, its looking good but I wont be celebrating until I’m nicely moored up in Horta. Tonight I will sleep out in the cockpit, its a habit I’ve got into the night before land fall as I did did before Gijon, La Palma and Antigua.

So at some time tomorrow I should be shouting…. Land ahoy!