Current Position: 44 52S / 031 39W
24 hour progress: 130nm, 5.4kts avg SOG. Overall progress for the passage is 1,322nm, approximately 2,167nm left to go via a great circle route to St Helena. 1/3 of the way!
Yesterday we kept on sailing as close hauled as we go. We sailed the first 22 hours of the day with 1 reef in the main and a full genoa. Yep, 3 full days of sailing heeled over, pounding into the waves. Whew! At least it wasn't always bashing into waves as the beginning and end of the 3 day period had very gentle seas. Speeds and course varied quite a bit, but we never touched the sails and just kept sailing at an apparent wind angle of 50 degrees.
Sometimes we were making over 7.5kts, in fact the average for our first 6 hours was 7kts. However, by evening the winds had calmed and speeds had fallen off. We were still sometimes making 6kts or more but sometimes we were making 2kts. Our track around the edge of the high pressure system looks like a wandering brook on the plotter. After sunrise, the winds fell to almost nothing. We persevered until all steerage was lost and then the engine came on for the last 2 hours of our day 10.
It was a great day of sailing, even if it isn't our favorite point of sail. And the weather gave us nothing to complain about either. Unfortunately, we didn't quite squeak around the high under sail, but so it goes.
The exciting exercise of the day was determining what location should be tagged on our devices as we shifted our working time zone aboard Zephyros to UTC -0200 hrs. We settled on using Grytviken, South Georgia, UK. St Helena operates on UTC, so we will be moving the clocks twice more on this passage.
Hopefully, we will find the other side of this high pressure system earlier vice later in the day so we can shut off the noisy engine and get back to silently sailing. In the meantime, the sun is out, the sky is blue, the ocean swell is gentle, and we're moving in the right direction. And we have a tank of hot water again.
We didn't see many birds yesterday, but there are still a hand full around—mostly albatrosses.
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