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Starblazer - 15 December A squally day



We are now in ARC weather forecast area Romeo. If you thought Romeo was
lovely, a star crossed lover, cruelly misled, think again. Yesterday’s
forecast was possibly the most threatening we had received. Squalls all
day, winds of 20 – 25 knots gusting 27, swell 4 metres, waves 1.5 to 2
metres from a different direction; it was time to be a little more cautious.
When John came on deck at 0800 we decided it was time to reef the mainsail
which, unfortunately, means one of us has to go to the mast while the other
helms. I’m not keen on helming in relatively calm conditions, we did not
have relatively calm conditions! It took about 30 minutes to sort out what
we were doing, in which order and to execute the plan. I pulled two reefs
in, making the sail significantly smaller, we reset it and off we went again
at amazing speeds.

The first significant squall of the day, and also of the crossing, blew in
at about 0930 local. The rain was heavy, the wind peaked at 37 knots and
John had to helm as the autopilot couldn’t cope. It could have been a lot
worse, the radar showed two lines of squalls which magically passed either
side of us; we just caught the conditions at the edges.

We are attaining some amazing distances, noon to noon. Friday to Saturday
we covered 182 miles our joint best distance. According to the forecast
there is very little current but surfing down the huge swells help
immensely. We have decided it is now safe to declare that we shall arrive
Sunday, late afternoon or evening. To celebrate this fact we had steaks,
potatoes and ratatouille for dinner.

My final passage blog, probably tomorrow morning, will let you into the
secrets we have been keeping, once we have arrived safe and sound. I’ll
also do a resume of what worked and what didn’t, especially in terms of
provisioning.

Joyce



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