We are currently in position 21 30S 006 30E and saillng at 6 knots on a course of 310M. The wind is SSE at 12-18 knots with a 1m sea and a decreasing 2m SW swell. We are sailing under full main and single-furled yankee. Overcast sky. Our day's run was 149nm and we have 768nm to go. By the way, the day's run is 24 hours - it doesn't include the extra hour from changing time zones!
Yesterday afternoon we had winds of up to 25 knots so sailed along comfortably under single-reefed main and triple-furled yankee. The 2m SE sea with 3m SW swell made the sea state unpleasant - rolly and with the tops of square waves occasionally "dropping in" to the cockpit. The Aires vane gear coped with it very well.
Overnight the swell and the wind eased gradually until we shook out the reef after breakfast. The sky has been overcast since mid-afternoon yesterday. 'Tis very grey.
This morning we saw our first ship on AIS for about 4 days. MV Jupiter came past 10nm away. Interestingly we could still see her when she was 80nm to our south. I suspect the anticyclonic weather is producing VHF ducting to carry the signal that far.
We expect to stay on this gybe for several days. We're sailing around the high pressure system south of St Helena. We'll probably gybe when we're south of our target. PredictWind says we'll make it direct but I need to modify the polar data I uploaded for Zen Again - we don't sail as low as they expect when broad reaching in light airs.
PredictWind Weather Routing (Green => 10-15knots)
The routing shows recommended routes based on four weather models and including current info. Here's the RTOFS current info for the same area today.
RTOFS Current GRIB (orange => >1knot)
Trust all's well where you are.
Congratulations, Mike, on the award. Great to see you being recognised for such an important service to others. Mark
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