St Pierre Outbound Day 2

Hi everyone,
At 1200 today we were at 44 36N 050 57W steering 140M, beam reaching under double-reefed main and double-furled yankee at 5 knots. It was overcast with passing low drizzle showers. The wind was 14G19 from the WSW. Our noon to noon run by the log was 124nm.

Yesterday afternoon we had squalls with gusts up to 30 knots. Mostly it was 15-18G20-25. We had the main double-reefed (trisail size) and three furls in the yankee. Thought about furling the yankee and setting the staysail (storm jib) but it wasn't necessary. The fog very slowly lifted. The seas continued to be short, sharp and 2m high. Every once in a while one would break into us, giving us a good 'side swipe' and a drenched cockpit. Loving our new wet weather gear! Twice a large pod of dolphins accompanied us for about 30 minutes - always fun to watch.

In the evening the fog returned for several hours before lifting. We could then see a few stars through 'holes' in the higher clouds. The squalls continued overnight with the yankee ranging between 2 and 3 furls. In the small hours the squalls faded and at dawn the had only 1 furl in the yankee.

This morning the wind has been quite variable, 6-15G25. We shook out the second reef but it went back in 30 minutes later. We're loving our Tides Marine SailTrack - sooo much easier to reef the main.

We're still over the Grand Banks. Should leave them astern around midday tomorrow. Once we do so we'll be trying to stay in the Gulf Stream which should give us a nice current assist. The routing reccommendations we get from PredictWind incorporate current, and we download RTOFS current GRIB files.

Water and air temperatures are creaping up. Water is now 21C. We're out of our padded onesies! And our SailnSea hydrogenerator is keeping our battery level stable with no sun for the solar panels. It's doing so despite our running the autopilot since we can't balance the boat for the WindPilot while beam reaching. Hopefuflly we'll be broad reaching in a day or two under a sunny sky!

Trust all's well where you are.