Fwd: Day 8 - Still Starboard Gybe
Bonkers
Donald Macdonald
Sun 21 Jan 2024 19:04
Position: 24.15N 29.24W
Over 3 days of 6-7 knots on starboard tack is hard on the body always sleeping on your sam side in the bunk unless you top and toe yourself. The sheets and halyards need moving a slight amount to reduce wear at a single point for so long, do not want self induced faults to deal with.
We covered 196nm in one 26 hour period, not too bad and Harold surfed today at 15.4 knots. We have covered 918 nm and distance to waypoint off English Harbour, Antigua of 1863nm to go.
Over the last couple of days have not seen any wildlife bar a solitary bird hovering in the wind a few feet above the water. Also not seen on AIS, visually or on the radio any other shipping around, I dare say we are in mid Atlantic now and suspect this senario on shipping for another 10 days.
Without cloudless skies during the day dc power management has been a high priority monitoring item because the coolbox compressor uses 5 amps of power for long periodsndraining battery at night. Problem of high power useage either inefficient compressor or lack of good seal on lid, maybe both. This has led to high useage of fuel cell which we only have 18 litres methonol left to get us back to UK too if we do not use the engine for charging. Just hope for cloudless skies during the day is our best solution.
Dinner will be chicken and chunky vegetable soup, extra veg, baguette, cheese then sliced peaches.