Route 331

Having wasted quite a lot of time and miles detouring around Valdivia
Banks, we have now hit the Hout Bay -St Helena Rhumb line, and done 30
deg left turn. We are now running with the windat 160over our stb
quarter. We have 2 reefs in the main, a matching poled out genoa to
windward, with the staysail in between as a balancing sail to reduce
the rolling. IT is all very comfortable , and we are rolling along at
between 5.5 and 6.5 knots as the wind has dropped down to 15knots.
occassional gusts of 25 come through which gets everything thrumming!
The tactic of gybin either side put poor Fred under too much pressure
in the gusts, and off the back of cross swells, and he became
electrically demanding !
He is now enjoying a well earned respite, as are we!
This morning saw us complete our first 1000miles of the
trip, 1041.5 actually, after exactly 7 days sailing, with an average
of 6.2knots. Our DMG, (distance made Good) was only 950 miles, which
reduces the VMG to 5.65. We had 741 miles to go. AS it took us quite a
while to rig up this sail set up,we are unlikely to change it much
until we drop sails at Butt Pt. Unless of course we are forced to!!
Specialthanks to Nic van Zylen for his tip about spinnaker pole
lengths when being used for poling out headsails. Normally the pole
length is determined by the J measurement, which in our case would
have been +/- 5.1mtr.
When making up the pole out of the six mtr length, he persuaded me to
use the full 6 metres, and to use a snatch block to control the jib
sheet position for different size sails. Works like a charm! Thanks
Nic!