After several days of heavy weather sailing – in which we had to move our high wind speed alarm up to 40 kts to stop it going off all the time at 35kts – the rain and clouds have finally moved away! We were quite exhausted from the hard going and really enjoyed finally having a quiet night and uninterrupted sleep.
The wind has veered further around to 220° and slowed to 8-10 knots. We are now sailing downwind in Westerly winds. We have 840 miles to go to Ponta Delgada and are looking forward to making landfall very much. As is often the case on long passages, conversations often revolve around what we will eat and drink when we have arrived (“food fantasies”). Cold beer features prominently!
So this morning after breakfast, we went on deck, furled the genoa away, rigged downhaul, guy and halyard lines to the outboard end of the spinnaker pole, led the starboard genoa sheet through it’s jaw and deployed the pole out to starboard. We then unfurled the genoa. In this configuration the pole stops the genoa from collapsing when sailing downwind in light winds.
Next we rigged a long preventer line from the port aft cleat along the deck all the way forward, out through the port bow mooring line fairlead and back to the end of the boom, where we tied a bowline. We eased off the port running backstay, pulling it forward so the boom and mainsail wouldn’t hit it, and then eased out the main sheet while simultaneously hauling the preventer in on the aft cleat. The result is a “goose-wing” sail plan for downwind sailing. We are making around 4 kts speed over ground in about 8 kts of wind.
The conditions are so calm that we ran the water maker and decided to give fishing a go for the first time on this passage. After we got the rod, reel and line out, dolphins showed up. So, not wanting to accidentally hook any of them, we reeled in the fishing line, but will get it out again in a few hours after they have cleared off.
Maybe we will have fish for dinner…
