Position at 12.00 hrs on 2 June is 29:48.0N  71:37.7W and we have 392nm to run to Bermuda so we did about  78 nm over the day. That is miles toward Bermuda the actual mileages travelled is greater

because we are not on course.

 

2 June - We have been three days close hauled on the port tack and that is due to continue for a while. That means the sails are hard in and we are sailing as close to the wind as possible. Not the most comfortable point of sailing as we are healed over. Moving around RT means making sure that you hang on tight, Making cups of tea can be hazardous and frustrating , one full cup of mine shot off the cabin the other day. We are on an upwind passage, we are about 20/30 degrees off our desired track which at the moment is 66 degrees. We are making about 88 at the moment. Therefore at some time we will have to tack in order to make Bermuda, alternatively hope the direction of the wind changes in order to bring us onto course. The forecast infers the later with our course starting to improve sometime tomorrow.  In the meantime we are making positive steady progress.

 

The wind has been consistently in the upper teens and lower twenties so various amount of reefing is in use to keep the ride bearable.

 

Its getting colder, Norman has worn long trousers for his night watch. This is the first times in longs since January. I was definitely cold last night in my sheet sleeping bag. The day times are still tee shirt and shorts for the time being.

 

No fish jumping or sea birds. Close hauled isn’t the best point of sailing for fishing so I got my excuse for lack of success.

 

All the fresh food has gone now but we have plenty of staples, like Ps and Os. The urge to do anything adventurous in the galley isn’t there at the moment.

 

We are not seeing a lot of life around us, no fish or birds, also very few ships, maybe one or possibly two a day, usually far away on the horizon. Our AIS automatic identification system can spot ships over 30 miles away which we can’t even see. We can see them on the chart plotter as a little moving triangle. We can look to see what they are called what they are carrying and their speed and direction. When they are closer we get an alarm if a collision is likely. The wonders of the modern chart plotter.

 

Life on board is fairly mundane most of the time. Reading, sleeping,poking around doing jobs if we can hang on whilst doing so, writing this blog, etc. What we don’t do a lot of his hand steering. This is mainly left to Monica. We have to tweek her from time to time and set it up. Occasionally in very light winds a bit of manual intervention is necessary to prevent her wandering off course but in the current conditions she quite capable of managing without us. There are a few knacks for getting the best out of RT. For instance in order to get more speed when close hauled adjust Monica to take us more down wind. The set of the sails really dictates where we go so is doesn’t affect the ability to point and offsetting Monica applies a bit more weather helm and helps it to resist leeway whilst at the same time increasing the speed. Basically what we are doing is tightening up the control to get the best out of RT. It also resists the tendency for RT to luff up and in doing so loose speed and direction. Sorry about all that folks, you can see I’m a bit bored, or boring today.

 

We have adopted a slightly different watch routine. We still have three hour watches. These are fairly flexible during the daylight hours and more regimented between 21.00 and 09.00. We used to work such that each day we rotated who did the 21 00 shift and after that we alternated. This time Norm always does the 21 00 and I start at midnight. Norm likes it that way as he gets to go to bed at 12 00 and then sees the sunrise on the 03 00 shift. I like to get to bed at 2100 and get the early bird shift art 06 00.

 

Enough for now.

 

All in good health and sleeping well and looking forward to a short break in Bermuda.