S/Y Gwendoline M - Atlanterhavskryds
13. December. 18.00 UTC.
On bord Lene, Bente, Annette, Maiken, Oliver, Orla og Kim
Position: 14.14.585N 51.48.144W
We are now so far west, that we have changed the local time on S/Y Gwendoline M. in order to align the sun position with the local time. The local S/Y Gwendoline M time is right now 16.00, UTC is 18.00 and the time in Denmark is 19.00
The latest 3 days have been fast - sailing vice. This also means higher waves, more rolling and pitching and therefore also not so ideal sleeping conditions.
We are all marked by the constant tumbling and turning of the boat in the ruthless Atlantic swell, which makes it impossible to rest and relax, as you always have to tense your muscles to counteract the ships movements. This takes its toll on the body, and we all feel it more and more.
On a more cheerful note, we are all looking forward to make landfall in St. Lucia in a few days. We are all fantasising about what to do and what to eat when we come ashore. We all are dreaming about a proper bath - with an endless supply of fresh water.
The day before yesterday (Sunday the 11th) we made a "man-over-board" exercise. We had a white cabbage which had gone bad, and as it is approximately the same size as a human head - we threw it over board to get a fair idea of how fast we loose sight of a human falling overboard in the rather big swell we had at that time.
After 3 (tree) minutes we lost sight of the cabbage head - and we never saw it again.
We are still maintaining the very high security level on board - wearing life line 24*7.
The latest 24 hours have - sailing vice - been very challenging. We are in the midst of a long "chain" of clouds running from east to west. We have normal clouds, which only blocks out the sun light. We have rainy clouds - showering us with with a steady rail fall in 5 - 10 minutes and then they have past over us.
We also have the fast movers. It is very heavy clouds with a lot of rain - moving at a pace of up to 48 knots. We can spot them on our radar - and we track their route - so we can down size our total sail area before they hit us with wind at 40 - 50 knots.
Most of yesterday evening and the whole night we have had vastly reduced sails - as the wind constantly shifted in speed from 20 - 35 knots with gusts of up to 45 knots.
It was not very pleasant, and we are happy that we now have more normal wind conditions at 20 - 30 knots. Since 10.00 UTC we have had a sail configuration which have given us a tremendous speed of 8 knots in average. This speed is still valid now at 18.00 UTC - but we expect the wind to drop to 20 below knots during the night. We still hope to maintain an average speed of 7 knots though.
We are happy to convey that out auxiliary autopilot is still going strong.
Even though we now have only 530 nautical miles left to go, it is still a considerable distance left. To compare, crossing the Biscay is 400 nautical miles and the trip from Lagos - Portugal to Madeira is some 480 nautical miles.
If we keep up the speed - it is highly possible that we will make landfall in St. Lucia early December 17th.
Over and Out from
S/Y Gwendoline M
Atlanten