Day 15 – 30 miles to go…

Same wind , same waves , but a totally different day. We are rested , (relatively ) comfortable and have easily made up our sleep deficit and whats more are well under 30 miles to our waypoint at the southern tip of Barbados.

When racing , I am always searching for that subtle combination of sail choice , twist , balance and helm that allows the boat to move “sweetly” through the water . It seems that we have hit apon the cruising equivalent for these conditions – a poled out No 3 to windward , set fairly flat but with just enough twist to tolerate a windward lurch, and the trisail eased off to the leeward shrouds with an additional line led down from the clew vertically to BMax. The main would have been a nightmare in these conditions , slatting and rolling and threatening to trawl the boom in the water , but the trysail just sits there good as gold with never a flap. It seems that with the windvane set so that we have the wind fine on the quarter , this rig steers itself and the back edge of the trysail inhibits rolling . We havn’t touched a thing for 36 hours and it looks like delivering us to within 1 mile of our final waypoint!

Of course it helps that the showers are now just that , rather than torrential downpours , so rather than sit cowering under the “bubble ” , we can open the companionway and get some air inside . I got a bit blase last night and opened the rear cabin window , but was soon woken rudely by a rogue wave jumping in !

Apparently Barbados is quite flat and hard to see. The pilot says that the old schooner captains used to carry a pig to sniff the truffles and thus aid landfall. I’ m not quite sure how that would work ( one oink for starboard , two for port – and 3 for “Youve missed it you daft bugger?) At any rate it would be a superporcine pig that could smell downwind in 25 knots!

So , at local noon (1600 UT) we are at 13 07 N 59 05 W with 25 knots up the chuff , lookouts posted and all well.

2 Comments

  1. Fantastic… WELL DONE ! enjoy the rum punch

  2. Well done! Over in next to no time…

    It snowed again here today – no sign of winter letting go.

    We were at the Düsseldorf boat show last weekend – maybe we’ll buy a Southerly and follow in your tracks.

    John and Liv Jorunn

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