It was a day pure bluewater sailing today with ”Fair winds and following seas” in our favour. I kept working on the trim and sails optimisation under various aspects. Eliminating noise coming out of the boom and its connections and ensuring the Hydrovane has minimum work to do by optimized balance of the sails and the main rudder. I kept the apparent wind angle (AWA) at 120 ° not being keen to go much higher in these rolling waves as this will reduce the risk to get into an uncontrolled gybe. Besides running the preventer line for the boom at outer sailing position I have found a mechanism to fix it a lower angles and same time reducing the cracking noise. A line from the boom end to the after cleat back to our spare winch is a good additional fix operated from the cockpit.
The snapshot above shows the forecast for the night. Should all be pleasant as I am convineced that the gusts for tomorrow early morning hours are a mistake while transferring data from one system to the next. Going back to the root data, it shows gusts up to 25kn. I have therefore reefed the mainsail and reduced speed to get comfortably through the night. It might cost me my arrival in Funchal at daylight hours but so be it. Better slow and safe.
It was interesting to listen to the GGR community on Marine Radio, channel CH 6-3. Not sure, who it was but will listen in tomorrow evening as well to explore more. They are somewhere on the way to Rubicon/Lanzarote for a photo stop but I will probably mis them anyway.
Well, time for me to get some dinner prepared. Time is flying.
Fair winds..
