The start from Cape Verde last Wednesday 21/11 was calm. We did sail a few hours but as the speed dropped down to 2,5 knot did we start the engine. So did most of the other boats and we motored all night.
Yesterday midday came the wind. Now we have 25-30 knot (15 m/s) of wind and big swell. We are doing 8-9 knots and up to 10,5 down hill. We have now 1770 Nm to go of the 2100 Nm to St Lucia.
We have minimum of sail rolled out.
We get reports on the SSB radio of one other boat who lost one of their two rudders. Another one forgot to pull in the fishing line when the wind increased and had to pull in a 10 kg Mahi-Mahi in the middle of the night in the dark and with 9 knot of speed in this heavy swell. It must have been a struggle.
A normal day onboard:
19-22 Sara has the night watch
22-01 Bjorn
01-04 Mats
04-07 Louise
If needed change sail setting
Clear deck from any dead flying fish or squids from the night.
Bananas from our fruit net under the solar panel is already brown and start falling thru the net down on our new teak deck…
Breakfast and dish
Download weather grib file. 0,5 MB took almost one hour…
SSB radio Net call to the other boats.
Rig check
Update log book.
Sound book (Normally not possible to read in these waves)
Lunch and dish. Cut any trash into small bits to reduce trash volume.
e-mail from ARC Rally Control with position of the other boats. _ The highlight of the day. Now we are 19th of 75 boats.
e-mail from Askalon and trouble shooting with Outlook access.
Day watch at the helm.
Run the diesel generator and water maker to produce fresh water from the sea.
Rig check and fix small problems or change to minimize risk of chafe.
Recover some sleep.
Dinner and dish
Reduce sail for the night.
19:00 its totally dark and the night watch starts again and the others go to bed. I sleep in the saloon to be available for sail changes or other problems.
Very messy down below after rain squalls and rolling sea with 5 meter waves.
All well onboard Mon Ami
Mats
Sailing Mon Ami around the world 