POSITION REPORT ON THURSDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2017 AT 0700

09:25N   088:33E

So far we've done 295 miles with 548  miles to go. We did 160 miles in the last 24 hours.  We’ve got 50% clouds and 15-20 knot NE winds.  We’re still rolling downwind with 2 metre seas.   Here's what we did yesterday and overnight.

15 February 2017    Port Blair to Galle, Sri Lanka (Day 2)

We’re either getting used to the rolling or the conditions are getting better because life on board seemed to be more pleasant in the morning.  So far, we’ve seen nothing apart from the sky, the sea and flying fish.

My small task this morning was to remove the satellite phone from the box sealed by customs and download a weather forecast. The GRIB file shows that the wind should continue at NE 15 for the next four days and then, on Sunday 19th will drop to 5 knots, meaning that we’ll be motoring for at least 24 hours.

I recalculated a route using qtVlm and it predicts that we’ll arrive on the 20th, which is a day earlier than I expected – although we’re not getting excited yet.  Strangely, qtVlm wants us to curve 50 miles south of the rhumb line – I can’t see any reason to do that, so we’re going to sail down the rhumb line for another day and see what route qtVlm calculates tomorrow.

During the afternoon, the wind backed by 30 degrees, so the apparent wind went from dead behind to our starboard quarter and thankfully, the rolling decreased. We kept the genoa poled out to starboard and put a reef in the main at sunset.

It was dark for my 7-10 watch, but the moon came out at 23:00 and the rest of the night was idyllic, bowling along on a broad reach at over 6 knots with 15-20 knot winds.