Position 23 34 N 66 40 W
Course 035 degrees
Speed 6.6 knots
Wind East 8-10 knots
24 hours run 142 miles
We had such a lovely afternoon yesterday sailing in a gently rolling sea wing on wing, both sails puffing us along at about 6 knots, even though the sky was grey we really enjoyed it. We were expecting the wind to drop off and to motor so I had planned a nice dinner of frenched rack of lamb with feta salad. As expected through the afternoon the wind got lighter and lighter and eventually around 4.30pm we were moving at less than 4 knots so we put the engine on and furled the genoa and stowed the pole and guy lines.
The sea glassed off for half an hour, however ahead we could see a dark line of cloud. We checked the radar and there was no sign of rain but as we went under it out of know where the wind came in at 15 knots directly from the north, then increased to 20 knots as we pressed on. At first we just motored into it but after a few minutes when the sea started to increase (wind over current) we set the sails and sailed as close to the wind as possible in a north-westerly direction.
Askari lapped it up and we were soon doing 7.5 knots, although the sea was getting bigger and starting to crash over the boat. At one point Andrew was sitting in a pool of foam - he can't have washed the soap out of his boardies - ha ha!! I didn't get to sit this one out though and when the strop holding our anchor secure broke, Andrew hove too and I went to the bow to fix it up getting dunked in a wave too!
At 6pm I checked in with Chris Parker, the weather forecaster - a first for me, as Andrew was monitoring conditions in the cockpit. He agreed the wind was local anomaly and should go in a couple of hours and also gave us some gulf stream information for a different port of entry in the US. The north wind stayed with us until about 11pm and then slowly clocked around to the east through the night and eased off a little to mostly 15 knots through the night.
Fancy dinner became just cutlets in a bowl and a bar of chocolate each as we bounced along with huge whooshing waves. This is the first time we have sailed Askari in a significant ocean swell close hauled and she was great, keeping speed on and just ploughing through the waves. I crashed out after our 8pm net with the Salty Dawgs where we learned that most of the front of the fleet had similar conditions; some up to 30knots from the north. I managed to get some sleep bouncing along however about 11pm the motion became really quite nice and my 3 hour watch from midnight til 3am was great sailing under a half moon, with even a couple of stars. I then must admit to sleeping right through my second watch - Andrew kindly let me catch up so today I feel great (he's knapping just now).
So this morning the winds have clocked right around to the east and only about 10 knots, however we have managed to keep sailing (while everyone else is motoring) by changing our course to the north east. In this light wind Askari is making her own apparent wind and we are having a lovely gently sail in calm seas right now; broadly in the direction of Bermuda (we are hedging our bets as there is possibly a front coming off the US coast just when we don't want it - so we will decide tomorrow if we will go to Bermuda).
Who knows what the next 24 hours will bring - it's not boring out here!
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