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Starblazer - 26/01/2016 – We are sailing, we are sailing..



But not ‘home again’, as in the Rod Stewart song if you are old enough to
remember it, but rather on our way to Santiago de Bahia in Brazil.
Yesterday’s winds were as co-operative as the previous day’s, i.e. not
really enough to allow us to sail all the way. The odd gust brought our
boat speed up to just over 5 knots, just about enough to arrive in time to
avoid a DNF (Did Not Finish within the allowed time) but the wind didn’t
stay. As usual we stopped the engine for the evening SSB radio net then
continued drifting along for the next hour. By 2000, time for me to go off
watch, we were making a fairly constant 5 knots so John decided not to
restart the engine.

There might be no engine noise but that doesn’t mean the boat is quiet. The
wind isn’t steady so, in the lulls, when the boat rolls gently on the waves
the leeward genoa (downwind one) gets blanketed by the mainsail so flutters
towards amidships then snaps back with a jerk. The mainsail does the same
thing when the wind is too light to hold it against gravity when we roll. We
will probably change the sail plan again in the morning, dropping the main
and poling out the leeward genoa. The windward genoa is already held out by
a pole. The GRIB files suggest that the wind should steadily build to about
15 knots today so we will make better speed. We actually need to average
about 5.25 however, with just over 1,000 miles to go, we can afford to sail
at a little less than the required rate.

Direction is also important! According to our instruments, the VMG
(Velocity Made Good or speed towards the waypoint) is the same as our boat
speed which means all our speed is in the right direction. For the first
few days we couldn't sail the exact heading we wanted and went quite a bit
further north than the rest of the fleet even though the bearing to the
waypoint remained constant, something I found quite bizarre. The instrument
cleverly calculates the shortest route which, over this sort of distance,
isn’t necessarily a straight line. We all know that he earth isn’t flat and
the shortest route is known as the great circle route, putting a curve into
our track. At least we are back on track!

Boat jobs yesterday included more washing, making more water, hiding from
the sun while getting a breeze into the cockpit and cooking. Yes, it’s a
hard life and no, we don’t expect any sympathy! Dinner was pork chops with
apple sauce, mashed potatoes, butternut squash and spiced red cabbage.

Joyce


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