Re: Blue Wonder - Thursday 2nd December
Rapier 550 on tour
Mark Jarvis
Fri 3 Dec 2021 13:48
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19 53N 042 36.3W It's really hard to describe how easy this Rapier 550 is
to live with at sea! The winds are varying from 20-35 knots and the sea state is
quoted as 3-4m, but seems a lot bigger when you are in them, and yet we are all
in shorts and t-shirt, seated watching the world go by as the washing machine
completes the next load! The view from the back doors is intermittently of a
wall of grey/blue sea and then open water into grey cloud and yet the boat just
handles it and gets on with it's job of delivering us safely to St
Lucia.
In trying to decide how fast to push this boat I have
taken the decision that arriving safely is more important then trying to break
records and so we have been using a very leisurely jib-only sail plan and
still been matching or bettering most of the fleet. Today the crew decided
that they wanted a bit more challenge and so we now have a double reefed
mainsail and full working jib but by necessity have had to come off the
rhomb line direct route to the destination. That means our boat speed has
to increase if our VMG is not to reduce. AT the moment, with main and jib
set we are making about 8.4 knots VMG with a current speed over the ground
of 8-12 knots. Yesterday our VMG was 6.7knots and so this looks at first glance
as though it might be good for us.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is for the wind to
lighten a little and for the swell to reduce a little and then on Saturday we
should be able to set the parasail and carry that all the way to the finish! It
would be good to get back to sustained boat speeds over 10 knots
again.
Mark
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