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Starblazer - Starblazer 25 November - A slow start



It is a little daunting, distance to go to St Lucia is 2,657 miles, speed over the ground a paltry 2.5 knots but at least we have the helpful Canary current adding about a knot to our speed. It is even more frustrating when
you realise that less than half the miles we have covered have been towards our destination. There is a good reason for this. The shortest route would take us on a northerly course, mixing us up with a developing low and
suffering headwinds, not what we came here for! Our southerly course should have predominantly NEly winds until we meet the trade winds about 700 miles further south. It’s not all doom and gloom.

We started quite well and made good progress for an hour or so on mainsail alone. The moon is now up, the stars are amazing and we are surrounded by yachts’ lights! We have had bright sunshine, persistent heavy drizzle for a while, some reasonable winds counteracted by the weak flaky ones. We pulled the genoa out when the wind came forward but rolled it away again when the wind went aft. Sail trimming keeps us busy.

We intend to eat well on passage. Lunch today was Gravadlax and creammy cheese baguette and for dinner we had cold roast chicken breast slices on couscous with ratatouille. John cooked the chicken on Saturday and I made the rats one day last week then vacuum sealed it. Most of our meals, however, will be made from scratch.

Joyce (Official Ship’s blogger)


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