Hey guys! We are well into the second day of our voyage with over 300 miles behind us. We waited few days to pick just the right weather and so far it’s working out really well. Not only the weather, but the boat and the crew are in perfect shape. Yesterday we had few small things breaking, but mainly because of my own error. I will attach the photo of a winch that have been forced to pop by an improperly placed gennaker sheet. As a result we lost the cap and the tongue from the top of the winch. Fortunately I am a real hog hen it comes to spare part and I have both in stock, so everything is fixed in back in good working order. Currently running gennaker and mainsail during the day and last night we reduced to mainsail and genoa, because there were few clouds on the horizon that looked like they could produce some gusts. In the middle of the night a single gust reached 25 knots which could have been disastrous for the gennaker should it stay on the mast.
Right now the big dilemma that requires a bit of experience, knowledge, current weather info and simple magic to solve is which course to take precisely on our way North in order to avoid the calm in front of us. Good news is that the boat sails amazingly well. Right now we are doing 8 knots in 9 knots of wind, so as long as we can keep the angle to the wind we should be able to make meaningful progress even in 5 knots of wind. Unfortunately all 6 weather models on the Predictwind software show somewhat different location of the best passage through the calm. The general picture seems to agree, but the precise location of the most promising bridge through the calm to the westerlies is hard to pin point
The crew is in very good moods. Yesterday we made popcorn and movie night. It is so comfortable with this low wind and flat seas that it was hard to remind ourselves that we are in a middle of the ocean on a boat. The boat is very wide too so it is very stable on top of it. Since the beginning we saw only two ships and only on AIS as they passed teen miles away from us and we could not see them with our own eyes. Apparently on ship did pass behind us at night and Peter was able to see it. Ania’s cooking has won over all the hearts. Today I decided to use the drying baguettes and made loads of french toasts that were met with much enthusiasm. We are ironing out some details of safety drils and ditching plan, making periodic inspections of the whole boat including rigging with binoculars. I discovered a twist on the main halyard and a vibration on the propeller. We plan to fix both problems when we run into the calm or near calm. We want to drop the sails then, have a leisure swim, dive on the prop and cut off and untie suspected rope or nets on it and untwist the main halyard when the sail is down. Thank you guys for following our adventure. See you in a day or two.
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Bartek Dawidowski – s/y Poly
