15th November 2013
There’s a bit of rock n’ roll going on here just now. The wind has picked up to a F6-7 and the sea is building as well. I’ve just taken another reef in the main so we are going along fairly well with the Jib and two reefs in the mainsail. We’ve covered a lot of miles in the past 24hrs and had a cracking sail all last night. I didn’t get much sleep as I was up frequently to check how we were going as we were on the limit for carrying what sail we had set. But each time we seemed to be holding up ok. From 0600 yesterday to 0600 today on the Walker log we covered about 150nm. I’ve never seen Elsi sail so fast over a 24hr period. I think the best before was 143nm.
Alyson gave me an up to date forecast for here at 0800 and at 0830 the wind had picked up so I had to change down to the Jib. It has slowed us up a bit but we are safer and it has eased the strain on everything including me. So our days run is 140nm which is still one of our best ever.
There is a lot less shipping here as we are further off the coast.
I’d just finished writing the above when the wind picked up another notch and I have ended up dropping the main altogether and we are sailing now with Jib only and still sailing fast. The wind must be over 30kts now. The Aries self steering gear copes with it all amazingly well and I cannot praise it enough.
We had our first flying fish onboard this morning. He was a little fellow only 2 inches long. Not enough for breakfast.
Madeira is about 700nm away so if we can make 100 miles a day we will be there this time next week.
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