The wind dropped overnight and this morning we had no wind for a while. Our 24hr progress has subsequenlty suffered. At present we have 2-5kn and we are moving again. its hotter and today we have had the first showers on deck with buckets of seawater. It was colder than expected, but lovely and refreshing after the first bucket. Suncream, swimwear, and hats are the dress order.
At daybreak we swapped the Asymetric for the repaired large Spinnaker, and once it set the repair dosnt look at all bad. Great job by Mick Rich. Not sure if the sail is properly repairable or not though, but at least its pulling. Hope we dont get any more spinaker damage as most of our repair material is now used up.
Still having power issues. This morning I switched all instrumentation off and we are running the generator as unfortunately after our engine charging run yesterday we left the battery switch on 'both' and of course both batteries were drained come this morning. Normally we always try and retain one fully charged domestic battery but its proving difficult now with little wind to drive the windgen.
No signs of any oceanic wildlife save a couple of seabirds. In fact since the English Channel and Western Approaches to Biscay we havent seen any Dolphin or Whale activity at all.
There are fewer yachts around us now, just a couple on the horizon, one behind and one infront with no AIS signature. Rena (Moody 425)is to port and behind and Calmeiro (Lagoon 44 catamarran) is behind and to stb both about 2nm distant. Both large yachts rather than IRC Racing boats. Further away is yacht Friheten (Halberg Rassy 54) which has more wind and is behind our stb beam 34nm east.
This morning we were 175nm WNW of Nouadhibou which is in Mauritania West Africa. As at this morning we had moved up the leaderboard to 9th place which is great but I think short lived given these conditions we are now in. Hoping to get it back once the SW's kick in.
This afternoon we are feeling pretty much like lobsters over here. Its been hot hot hot and there has been zero wind for hours. The sea is like a mirror. Consequently our boat speed has been pretty much zero. Listening to the radio traffic everyone except the extreme northen and western boats are stuck in similar conditions. This is one big wind hole. Our thinking is the boats to the north west will be headed, and have to sail north of west (ie not good) once the SW breeze fills in. At around 16:30 a slight SW breeze of 5.5kn has come up giving a through the water speed of less than 4kn. We are on No.1 genny and full main now. During the day we have seen many ARC Crusing Division boats motoring past looking for new wind. They are allowed to do this so long as they declare powered engine hours. We cannot use our engine for propulsion and do not have that option. Both our suitcase generator and engine have been run trhroughout the day to bring the batteries back up. Going forward we will have to be much more prudent with power management. We have tried very hard to keep the boat moving during the calm period as everyone is in the same boat (excuse the pun) and if we can move a mile forward it may be a mile more than someone else! Once again our old MSC dinghy sailing experience comes into its own :)
Position at 16:40 22 12.480N 019 52.902W.
Dreading seeing the leaderboard update tomorrow. But spirits are high and we are having a ball. In fact we have just had meatballs for dinner. A Michelin star to Jonesy and Mike D.
Best,
Dave & crew.