Askari Sailing: Askari Report 1200 UTC 18th December 2016

Position 14 46 N 45 52 W
Course 280 degrees
Speed 7.7 knots
Wind East 25-30 knots
Distance in last 24 hours 182 miles

We are seriously flying along - 182 miles woohoo! We only had one squall yesterday but winds have been between 18 and 35 knots for the last 24 hours, with mostly clear skies. It's fair to say the 3 metre seas with a close interval are quite challenging; we are used to sailing in 30 knots in Western Australia but these seas are really quite impressive (code for a bit scary). We have had a few little sploshes and a bit of spray in the wind in the cockpit so have got the washboard up today for the first time on the trip, other than in squalls - we are still amazed at how dry Askari is the whole deck is pretty much dry most of the time. We have not touched the sails for 12 hours when Andrew furled the genoa to about 1.5 reef points. We are still sailing wing on wing with the mini main on the port side but Askari feels quite balanced in these conditions, unless we get spun off the top of a wave; which does happen occasionally.

It's amazing to me how you can adjust to living in these conditions, last night we both slept really well and have got used to the motion - we had sundowners last night of Soda, Lime and Bitters; making a drink with 3 ingredients would have been unthinkable yesterday. We are just super organised and think through every task before embarking on it, often working together to hold or steady things. Everyday we check the bilge, seacocks, charge any batteries used overnight, review the contents of the fridge and agree the meal plan and times. We both try and have at least one little sleep during the day or at least some time off relaxed with noise cancelling headphones on. I prepare all meals, drinks and snacks, as Andrew coincidentally gets seasick in the galley…. Andrew is in charge of bringing in the weather and email plus the navigation and doing the deck checks to ensure we have no chafe points and everything looks good. He also checks the steering and autopilot each day - this can be quite entertaining as it involves him flipping half the mattress in the aft cabin to get under the bunk and he comes out looking like he's been in a fight. We also have alarms set so we don't miss any of the radio schedules to chat with other boats or get information.

I have now taken over radio net control in the afternoon as GB was having trouble reaching all the boats and we are bang smack in the middle now following our amazing couple of days. GB also sound like they have also adjusted, it was only a few days ago they were worried about the wind and size of the waves, however yesterday they were making Christmas decorations, cooking cake and were sad that they had slowed down as their wind was only 20 knots.

AIS continues to be one of our most favourite tools. In the night Andrew spotted a tanker, Haenia Pegasus, at 10 miles off on the AIS; he couldn't see any lights despite it being so close in these seas. He tracked the ship for 2 miles and could clearly see that we were on a collision course. Andrew called the ship on the VHF and they immediately answered saying they could see us too. Andrew explained we were sailing downwind and it was difficult for us to turn so they agreed to alter course and pass 'green to green'. Without AIS we would not have seen this ship until it was ridiculously close and even then with the boat moving around so much it would have been very hard to know if we were at risk of collision, then trying to reach the ship on the radio without knowing the name or co-ordinates always used to be virtually impossible. So thank you Haenia Pegasus and AIS for making that really easy.

About 619 miles to Barbados……