Today has been an exceedingly tiring, frustrating and grumpy day. The wind died down and the sails began to bang as the boat was tossed about in the waves. Seb and I donned our life jackets and got to work changing sail configurations and trimming. Genoa in, gennaker out on the pole, main up, main down, all configurations tried for port and starboard, gennaker off the pole, pole gibed, gennaker port, genoa starboard on the pole etc. etc. This is heavy work that went on for 3 hours while we were sailing very slowly in the wrong direction. Finally, we settled on gennaker to port and genoa to starboard on the pole (double foresail configuration). This worked for about 2 hours and then the wind changed again. Agggghhhhh! Sailing is soooo stupid. It feels like being on a very long flight trying and trying to get comfortable in your seat knowing that the more comfortable you are the faster the plane will arrive at your destination.
That said, all is well on board. The monkies are happy (generally meaning that we are happy) and Macsen continues to build on his collection of flying fish. The poor things seem to bump blindly into or onto the boat as they flutter to escape some other seemingly greater danger. We have managed to save a few by catching them as they land and tossing them back. And we have had other company as well…a group of large brownish gray dolphins came to play with us (the first on this passage) and a container ship bound for Iceland (due to arrive December 28th) crossed our path.
Day 9: Atlantic Crossing
Date: December 16, 2017
Time 12:00 UTC
Position 9’59.747N / 44’52.242W
COG/SOG: 250 degrees / 5.5-6kn
Trip distance: 1294nm
Distance to go: 657nm
24h distance: 141nm
Cabin temp: 28.5C
Sea temp: 22.7C
Conditions: sunny few clouds, NE 12-16kn, sea slight-moderate Sails: all configurations..
Live position tracker at: https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=02nKvBqvxOgtWvAPCDkUEUqyTcWFsO96a