Dear All,
We just went through a stormy Atlantic night last night....30 to 40 knot winds, lots of rain and decent swell. It was a nice change to experience a mild bit of heavy weather sailing.
For the most part we gunned along at "full bore" trying to get in a 200 Nm + day...but tempered the accelerator when we heard that some friends on board a nearby catamaran (John and Ziggy MacKenzie on Windancer IV) shattered their mainsail....Prior to exercising "due caution" we hit 16.1 knots down one wave....yee haa!!!!..That was fun.
I'm just about to send in our midday position report and have therefore calculated our run at 191 NM for the day...That's an average of 7.92 Knots ... including a light patch this morning where we sailed along in lighter breeze at 4-5 knots...
We have chilled the champagne and prepared the Cuban cigar for our belated "midway" party today. Belly is currently considering menu options and Stuey is assessing the viability of the mid-Atlantic swim...The boys, well they are still a bit exhausted after a more exciting evening sail....Nick did the 10pm to 1am watch with me when we were right in the midst of a big squall with tropical torrential rain...At least the topsides got a good rinsing down!!
Just lost a lure on the game fishing rod before....whatever took it was BIG!!! We'll keep trying...
Bye for now...
Ian
Position 16:22.35N 40:44.04W at 1200 Z Fri 6 Dec 2008