Day 13, Passage to Easter Island

1245Z 09SEP19, Day 13, Ecuador to Easter Island. We continue to make direct progress and good speed. Looks like we have somewhere around 4 days left to go now! We could arrive on the 12th, or if not, then we should be in by the 13th, we shall see how the next days go. The winds and seas really kicked up overnight. We are sailing our staysail because we were seeing sustained gusts of 35+kts for extended periods of time. Of course, we still see the occasional periods of 20kts as well.

Current Position: 20 57S 102 41W
24 hour progress: 156nm, 6.5kts avg SOG. Overall progress for the passage is 1777nm with approximately 525nm to go on the great circle route. The weather continues to be a mix of sun and clouds with small rain cells throughout. We have mostly threaded through the rain, but occasionally we have gotten a bit of a wash and then we are back to sun again. Winds continue to vary and are averaging around 30kts +/- 5kts. We are currently sailing between a beam reach and a broad reach with 3 reefs in the main and the full staysail.

The crew is doing well. We are getting banged around a bit by the larger seas and in the gusty sections. We are riding some bigger waves that really push us around. The conditions are a reminder of why you always move around with one hand for the boat. It is definitely risky to carry things in both hands right now - you could go flying. When moving around one hand is to be dedicated to bracing oneself.

It was a big mileage day for Zephyros. We think it was our biggest to date. It would have been even bigger if we hadn't needed to reduce sail for these bigger gusts. We were averaging 6.7kts for the first 18 hours of the day - which is more impressive if you realize that, the average typically means there is a lot of time at 7-8kts balanced by times at 5.5-6.5kts. The winds are forecasted to drop some in the next 24 hours so we should be at the peak of the winds and returning to more normal conditions soon. We are hoping to be back to the lower winds and back on the genoa again today.