new improved Yuva - now pointing at Ireland :-)

Yuva
Jim & Peri Holden
Thu 4 Aug 2016 00:36
45:11.49N 22:15.79W
posted by: Jim
date and local time (UT): Tuesday 2 August 2016 21:25

[Apologies as this was written on 1 August but only posted now, due to an error on my part]

We are now 450M from Terceira, with 630M to run to Dingle, our intended port of arrival in Ireland. We have enjoyed the pleasure of sailing for the past 33 hours, but have just now lost our wind entirely and so are now motoring to try to find the next bit of wind.

Throughout yesterday evening and last night and continuing up until noon today we experienced strong winds (SW F6 to F8) and building seas. When Peri and I came up for our 0800-1200 watch this morning a torrential downpour started, and the seas became very impressive. We chose to roll away the main, unreef the genoa and change course from 025 degrees to 040 degrees, whereupon we had fun rocketing down the large waves at hull speed in winds of 28-30kt for a few hours. Shortly before the end of our watch at noon, the wind veered NW and reduced to F4 to F5, and we reverted to full main and genoa on a course of 050, on which we still remain, pointing towards Dingle. The winds and seas have reduced steadily since mid-day, to the point where for the past few hours we were sailing at a gentle 6kt in NW F3 and a still bit of the remains of the earlier seas. We had thought continue that through the night, but as mentioned we lost our wind entirely (F1), so we reluctantly fired up the engine and are now motoring, taking consolation in charging the batteries and running the watermaker as we look for more wind.

This morning when Peri and I came on watch at 0800 we learned that Skip had sighted a large whale crossing our bow a short while earlier, but other than that we have spotted no marine wildlife at all, other than a limited number of sea birds.

Even more remarkable than the lack of wildlife is the total lack of other vessels as we have moved north. We departed Terceira on Sunday at the same time as some new Dutch friends who were heading for Scilly, but we soon lost sight of them. That same day a bit north of Terceira we saw three Pogo 6.5’s (small racing yachts) apparently in a Mini Transat race. One of them called us up on VHF to get a weather report. As for commercial shipping, we have had only two AIS sightings of ships since leaving Terceira. We saw only one of them physically, and both sightings were on Sunday. Amazingly we have now run two days without any sign of another vessel — have never before had that experience.

Tomorrow morning we expect to pass the mid-point of our passage to Ireland.

Greetings as always to our followers ashore. All aboard are well, as is the boat :-)

S/Y Yuva