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Exody - Days 53 to 56 - pointed at Hiva Oa



Three hundred miles out from the start of Leg 4 on Wednesday 4th, we altered course to starboard yesterday afternoon (Friday) and Exody is now pointed at Hiva Oa, a mere 2600 miles away as at noon today! If we continue at our typical 140 miles per day, we will arrive on Wednesday 25th or Thursday 26th March after three weeks at sea.

All good so far- the start of the leg went well with the fleet giving a colourful sail display and farewell to Galapagos- Exody was fourth across the start line. The first days have been relatively quiet and several boats had to motor to find the wind as we all headed south or southwest to pick up the trades - it never continues to surprise me how 16 boats on the same route can experience such different wind conditions whilst still fairly closely distributed!

We motored through calm seas for just under 6 hours on Thursday night and now on Saturday 7th have reached the 'proper' wind zone at 5 degrees south and are trucking along on a broad reach at nearly 7.5/8 knots through the water- we hope to pick up favourable current to add a knot and arrive earlier than forecast. So far we have missed the squalls that have dogged some of the fleet - they all seem to just miss us- particularly today as there are plenty of them around - real pity as we have been looking forward to showers from the sky - swimsuits and shampoo at the ready!

As on earlier legs, the radio net is a great source of information, camaraderie and company. Exody was net controller for the first day on Thursday 5th and we were lucky to have a 'full house' of responders plus some informal chat and quiz questions.

Before Wednesday night was out I had to dismantle the Aries self steering clutch mechanism which had become partly seized - maybe through two weeks disuse, and then on Friday morning a similar job on the port genoa winch which had seized. Both essential kit and fortunately fairly easily fixed. Thanks to Nigel Calder's book for excellent guidance and drawings of winch anatomy, no parts were lost or put back together wrong. The wind instrument has also died - this one is non-essential so its back to feeling it on our faces, ticklers everywhere and estimating the speed from the Beaufort descriptions.

On the domestic front,Petter has 'given up' smoking for the fourth time since joining the boat in Panama and we suspect it will be just for our benefit not his and that the first Marlborough shop in Hiva Oa will get his business once again!

We have changed from a two hour to a three hour watch system so each one of the three of us gets six hours sleep and this also means that the times of day for each person cycle through so we all get turns at dawns, moonrises etc and the alternating galley duties also fit in neatly.

It will be interesting to see of there is much new to say on future logs as it feels like its going to be - just keep going and doing the same for 18 more days !

Peter (Skipper)

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