Monday 25 August 2014
The wind never stopped and we never slowed. It gusted and died down and gusted and calmed down and so on. The sea state picked up and, while a little lumpy with 2-3m swells on the beam, Adina tore through it. Come 6pm we started applying the brakes and got rid of sail to time…
Sunday 24 August 2014
Friday 3pm local time we left the wonderful little country of Niue. Five days there, we’ll write more on it later, save to say we had a fabulous time. But some big seas are forecast to come in which would make sitting on the mooring buoys in Niue very uncomfortable. Five boats left, all timing…
Monday 18 August 2014
Day 9 dawned with grey skies, the threat of lots of breeze and some decent swell to go with it. It’s rather like that hard run or cycle you’ve done – you’re pretty exhausted and want the end but up ahead is a hill. Our hill arrived with 14-15 knots of wind with constant gusts…
Sunday 17 August 2014
Day 8, dawn rose and we knew we were approaching the infamous South Pacific Convergence Zone – the so-called Beast! In technical terms easterly winds from the tropics collide with more southerly winds bought on from down south. At times all is calm but at times there is a right old argument between the two…
Friday 15 August 2014
Day 7 and come dawn the seas had settled and we were sailing upwind ticking along at 4-5 knots. Nothing special but considering we were meant to be in light winds and motoring it was a rather pleasant surprise. Having mentioned our three worst points of sail it seems only fair to mention our three…
Friday 15 August 2014
Day 6 and come sunrise we agreed we’d hoist the spinnaker pole and try goose-winging. That notorious sailing method of pinning your main sail to one side and poling out the genoa to the other side. So Tom had to wake Susie barely an hour asleep with a “Sorry to disturb you but…” It’s hard…
Wednesday 13 August 2014
Day 5 Tuesday dawned and we had wind but we also had 2m confused seas on the beam. If we had to list the three ways of sailing we don’t particularly enjoy it would be: 1. Upwind in open seas with waves 2. Goose-winging dead downwind(sail on each side of the boat) causing the boat…