St Helena Outbound Day 15

Hi everyone,
We are currently in position 07 05S 031 01W, saillng at 5.5 knots on a course of 300M.  The wind is SE at 15-18 knots with a slight sea and minimal swell.  We are sailing under double-reefed main and full yankee.  Scattered small cumulus.  Our day's run was 114nm, our DMG was 102nm and we have 2331nm to go.

We have logged 2002nm for the passage to date.  Amazingly this means our average boat speed (through the water) is still 5.5knots despite being under headsail only for the last week.  And this is now the longest time we're ever spent at sea - 15 days.  I think that record's going to tumble in a big way on this passage!  Also it's nice to finally have our DMG only a little less than the day's run - shows we're able to head in the right direction at last!

We've had a very pleasant sail over the last 24 hours.  The wind was 10-12 knots last night which was enough to keep us moving along.  The sky was clear all night apart from a few small cumulus which passed over.  A spectacular moonless night.  A couple of ships came by but neither was close.

Our course is taking us approximately west (true vice magnetic) towards the coast of S America.  Hopefully we will find the predicted northerly current off the coast and gybe north to ride it to the cape (and beyond).

Yesterday afternoon we transferred 15 litres of water from a jerry can into the bladder which supplies the faucet in the head.  We also transferred 20 litres from a jerry into the main tanks which left them as full as we can get them at sea.  So far we have used no more than 80 litres of water in two weeks.  That's less then 3 litres per person per day.  We're pleased with that since it means the remaining 200 litres will last for over 5 weeks!  We're sure we won't need that long.

Here's where the fresh water goes, with a total usage of 6 litres each day:

• 1 litre for hand/face washing and brushing teeth in the head
• 0.6 litre for washing (in a pump bottle) we wash every other day, using fresh water for rinsing only
• 0.4 ltre for rinsing dishes (in a spray bottle)
• 4 litres drinking, cooking and shaving

We're making sure we stay well hydrated and 2 litres each per day seems to be all we need.  We also drink fruit juice, milk with our breakfast cereal and the juice from our daily fruit dessert.  Together these probably add 0.5 litre/day.

If the ITCZ delivers heavy rain we now have three empty jerry cans able to be filled.  Not that we need more water, but a daily wash might be nice!

St Helena Outbound Day 14

Hi everyone,
We are currently in position 07 22S 029 02W, saillng at 5.5 knots on a course of 290M. The wind is E at 12-16 knots with a slight sea and a 1.5m swell.  We are sailing under double-reefed main and full yankee.  Broken low cloud with rain showers have given way to scattered cumulus.  Our day's run was 114nm, our DMG was 100nm and we have 2433nm to go.

We have completed our second week at sea so here are some stats.  First our speed plot for the passage to date.  Note that this shows speed over ground, not distance made good.

Zen Again Speed Over Ground - Passage to Date

And here are the stats:

• Log Distance = 1878nm
• Average Boat Speed = 5.6knots (decreased following our change of strategy)
• Distance Made Good = 1455nm
• Average VMG = 4.3knots (increased following our change of strategy)
• Engine Hours = 14 hours (charging only)

Yesterday afternoon the lightish winds continued but we kept the boat moving OK.  It was a cloudless afternoon and quite hot.  The water temperature is now 29C and on sunny days it is hot and humid below.  The fans are on 24/7.

Overnight the winds picked up to 10-15 knots and the skies clouded over.  By midnight we were starting to have occasional light rain showers in complete overcast.  The wind varied from 6 to 20 knots.  The dark night may have contributed to our seeing lots of bioluminescence in the water and particularly in our wake.  Lots of tiny greenish lights in the water - spectacular.

This morning we've had more rain showers and have gybed twice as the winds backed and veered under them.  We're no longer heading straight down the track but we're making pretty reasonable progress considering the strength and direction of the wind.

I've been continuing to exchange emails with Colin the Winlink system operator in Cape Town.  He has created a set of waypoint files for OpenCPN.  Each contains all stations with particular capabilities (Pactor, Winmor etc) in their global network.  Great idea, especially given the software doesn't illustrate station location at all.  I'm hoping Colin will make them publicly available.

Winlink Pactor Stations (in magenta) in OpenCPN

Several ships have passed by over the last 3 days so we appear to be crossing the shipping lane to/from the Cape of Good Hope.  We only had to speak to one on the VHF to confirm he had changed course to avoid us.  The others passed several miles clear.

St Helena Outbound Day 13

Hi everyone,
We are currently in position 08 47S 027 59W, saillng at 4.5 knots on a course of 340M. The wind is E at 8-10 knots with a slight sea and a short 1.5m SE swell.  We are sailing under double-reefed main and full yankee.  Cloudless sky.  Our day's run was 125nm, our DMG was 106nm and we have 2533nm to go.

Visitor

It has been another 24 hours of very pleasant sailing.  The wind was steady at 10-15 knots until this morning when it lightened off.  At 1800 yesterday it backed from ESE to E and we gybed.  That put us on a course of 330M, straight towards our waypoint for the first time since leaving St Helena.  Naturally that didn't last long but even now we are only 10 degrees off course.  This explains the good stats despite the low winds.

Last night was moonless until about 0300 and there were only occasional small clouds around.  Very spectacular sky.

At around 0200 a guest arrived, a sooty tern (we think).  He perched on the reefed mainsail on the boom until daybreak. He or she wasn't fazed by torchlight or the camera flash, presumably due to exhaustion.  Other boats further north have reported flocks landing aboard and flying close around them.

Yesterday afternoon's HF net had 12 yachts reporting in.  One was an American single-hander who sailed past both St Helena and Ascension and has now set course for the Caribbean.  He likes his sailing!