All well, forward progress with a mix of sailing and motoring
Yuva
Jim & Peri Holden
Thu 4 Aug 2016 10:40
posted by: Jim
date and local time (UT): Thursday 4 August 2016 10:40
Last night in the end we only motored for an hour and a half, as the wind came in unexpectedly, soon after our last blog post. We had Force 4 at first, then Force 5 and 6, then Force 4 again, and finally back down to Force 3, and then very little in the end, with very slow progress in sloppy seas, so just after 9am the engine was back on again — but the good news is that we managed to sail nicely through all of the late night and early morning hours. The Force 6 part was great fun, a nice downwind romp.
We are being disciplined about our on watch timings, and impotantly also the skipper is being pushy about everyone getting enough off watch rest, so everyone does seem to be getting enough rest to be enjoying themselves.
We have still seen no other human marine traffic, but Peri last night saw a couple of dolphins zipping around the boat (visible mainly by their phosphorescent trails), and I smelled the strong fishy breath of what can only have been one or more whales blowing close to windward of us, but I did not see them. Peri is doubtful about my claim. The rest of the crew were polite and did not comment — but I stand by the claim ;-)
One further good part of last night’s sailing instead of motoring is that we now have sufficient fuel in reserve to motor the entire remaining distance. We are not going to do that, of coure, as good winds are expected from tomorrow afternoon at latest, but it is always good to know you have the fuel reserves there for it. Our total motoring range on full fuel is about 700M in calm conditions — less when the conditions are rougher but in that case you can usually sail! The total great circle route distance from Angra do Heroismo to Dingle is about 1065M, so we had to build up a bit of fuel reserve, which we have done despite motoring for the first day or so to get out of the Azores High.
Greetings as always to our followers ashore. All aboard are well, as is the boat :-)
S/Y Yuva