News from the fleet
SV Alexforbes Angel Wings: We had to drop the kite in the middle of the night and pole out Jib ,the wind was perfect however the cross swells made it difficult to control the boat, so we end up experiencing full on few broaches so i called for kite drop before making any damages. Earlier this morning kite back up flater sea state. That is why the ladies are flat out!
SV African Skimmer: Not much to report today. We have been sailing as hard as we can in an effort to retain/improve our placement. Not sure that it is working though… 😕 Sailing hard with the mostly the A2 up only switching to the A4 when the wind went over 25 knots last night. Gybing back and forth in the wind band trying to avoid a Big Hole to the south of us. Definitely on the home straight and soon hope that we can line up for Rio and cruise home without having to gybe anymore… 🙄
SV Vineta: The navigator aboard Vineta has been a bit quiet on social media recently. Not because I have been sleeping, on the contrary, we have been quite busy.
As usual, lots and lots of gybes recently. Most well executed, but occasionally things don’t go according to plan. Yesterday we had a big rain squall in the morning with strong, shifting winds, and that time the gybe didn’t go according to plan. The A2 spinnaker wrapped itself up like a towel trying to wring itself dry! We dropped it and temporarily changed to the A6 while we sorted things out. By the time it was sorted and rehoisted it was time to gybe back again.
Barely had we completed our manouevres than a Spanish fishing vessel, the Playa de Ril, turned up on collision course with us! Ultimately she did pass a mile off our starboard side, but it was interesting to see another vessel after such a long time alone!
Our day’s run yesterday was a respectable 206 miles.
Celestial navigation classes continued during the afternoon, with some excellent results, confirming that the GPS is not being spoofed at the moment!
Log entries for this morning:
- 04:00 Z: Gybed
- 05:00 Z: Rain
- 06:00 Z: Gybed, Rain
- 09:00 Z: Gybed
Not very exciting log entries, but at least we are keeping busy!
