Day 12, Passage to Easter Island

1245Z 08SEP19, Day 12, Ecuador to Easter Island. We continue to make direct progress and good speed. The winds and seas are both up. The wind has moved a bit aft and we are now sailing between a beam reach and a broad reach depending on the wind shifts.

Current Position: 19 04S 100 48W
24 hour progress: 152nm, 6.3kts avg SOG. Overall progress for the passage is 1621nm with approximately 680nm to go on the great circle route. Winds continue to vary and are averaging around 25kts +/- 5kts. We are currently sailing a broad reach with 3 reefs in the main and 3 in the genoa.

The crew is doing well. The boys have been listening to an audio book and creating elaborate imaginative stories with Legos. Yesterday we switched to our smaller headsail for about 6 hours. We decided that it worked well in the gusts but was too slow for the average winds, and far too slow for the lulls. So we are back to the partially furled genoa. It is always a balance. We aren't racers and don't like to push Zephyros too hard, but going too slow in big seas is not much fun either. So we are sailing comfortably in the averages, feeling like we need a bit more sail in the lulls and feeling like we need to start thinking about taking down sail in the gusts if they are to continue much longer (they usually seem to last about 5-15 minutes). It seems to be our comfortable place for these conditions and is working for us.