The wind begins to abate 45 41.50N 27 08.35W
Ellatrout3
Thu 22 May 2014 12:00
The wind continued well into Tuesday night at a
steady force 7 (Near Gale - Beaufort Scale term) in fact about midnight it gave
it's last kick rtising to a full force 8 gale for a while. It surprised me how
quickly and how much the sea got rougher by just going from a 7 to an 8. It
didn't last long and by 08.00 Wednesday it had dropped to a northerly 5 to 6,
still pretty strong but much more manageable.During the night the movement must
have been pretty big because the generator rope ,trailing behind, was
wrapped around the self steering rudder in the morning. For this to
happen the back of the boat must have lifted a yard out of the water because
that is the lenght of the steering ruddcer.
I put the mainsail back up at midday Tuesday,
3 reefs in, with a very small amount of jib. In the ast 24 hours I
haveslowly let the foresail out until now we full foresail flying but still have
3 reefs in the mainsail. For the last 500 miles thewind has been strong,
squally, northerly and cold, good for sailing west but a little sun
wouldn't go amiss. These consditions have brought me to the edge of the Gulf
Stream and I have to decide which way to go, n oth or south? We may not be
close to the Titanic this time, we'll have to wait and see?
You will probably realise that it is not easy to
type in these conditions and I have no spell checker, I hope you can decipher
most if it to get the gist of what is going on.
Poppa/Dad/Roger
|