Thursday 11 December, Days Run 183NM
As Flyer approaches land once again, the wind direction has begun to exasperate the crew not for the first time. Although we logged an excellent mileage, Flyer only made 166NM by VMG as she is once again gybeing downwind. The wind direction is due East at F4-5 and forecast to stay in the same direction although lose some of it's strength. Our course to Ss Lucia is due West so we are swinging 30degrees to either side of the rhumb line adding distance to our route. WE are hoping trhere is a windshift to either teh North or South which will then favour one gybe and give us a more direct course. With the wind gusting to around 24knots and a large Easterly swell running, a full mainsail and genoa were all that were required to maintain Flyer's boatspeed. Overnight we had seen many short duration squalls beneath clouds which had given us up to 30knots for a time. We coped with these by reducing the genoa by furling and bearing off the wind, this did mean more night time activity than normal which gave us all a bit less sleep.
We have had a couple of responses to the guess our ETA competition, please keep them coming!
ARC control reported that the lead yacht in our class, Savage had retired and was heading to Antigua, I can only guess that she has run out of time in what has been a slower than normal crossing. This means we were lying 7th in out class and 96th overall in the fleet. With the wind direction as it is, I cannot see us climb any further and may slip a few places towards the finish.
Whatever happens tomorrow we will be turning our attention to the onshore social programme that the ARC have laid on and some much needed rest.
Dave Sturrock