Day 325 - Rangiroa - Tahiti - Passage

Silk Sheets
Ben Shute & Fiona Kennelly
Tue 16 Jun 2009 18:50

Sunday 14th June – As of Midnight I was in position 16:10.62S 148:43.54W

 

After another early start I pulled up my anchor praying it would not catch on another coral bomby. It was just after 6:00AM as I motored off towards the westward pass already racing against the fleet of boats that had massed in Rangiroa.

 

It was only the evening before when Maya 3 and Newtsville motored around to each boat explaining the rules of the race they had concocted up. They were pretty straight forward it you were under 40 foot then for each foot you gained half an hour and for every hour you used your engine you lost half and hour.

Well as there was very little wind getting out of the Atoll I had to motor for 3 hours which put me on even time as I am 37’ long.

The weather I had downloaded first thing was predicting very light South Easterly winds however around lunch time the wind had picked up to around 20 Knots which was fantastic as it allowed Silky to run at here maximum hull speed for most of the night.

But in typical fashion and as always Silky was passed by all of the boats around 2AM which left me happily dozing off to sleep knowing it was only a fishing boat I could run into now. This did not really worry me as the night sky was littered with mast head lights glowing off in to the distance. 

Even though it was just a fun race organized the evening before I definitely took it as serious as possible. This is mainly because I had 200 miles to cover in two days and one night and I definitely wanted to arrive in the day light so it was always going to be a push.

I was very happy with Silky’s performance to be honest as she pushed into the wind so really held her line. I think the fact that I had tensioned the forestay a couple of days before had made a huge amount of difference for up wind sailing.

Each day at 6 AM, 12 & 6 PM everyone had to check in on the net to report their position. It was not long however some of the larger boats were so far in front that a lot of the boats were not able to pick them up. 

As the day turned into night the sky clouded over us and then put on a lightening show. This always makes me uneasy as the last thing you want is a lightening strike to cook all of your electrics.

 

Day 325

Destination – Tahiti 'Society Islands

Traveling Direction – South

Average Speed – 5.9 Knots

Total distance – 104.3 Nautical Miles

Travel Time – 17:54’h

 

 

 

 

 

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