SailBlog - Downwind Sailing!

Mark A

23/11/2008, North Atlantic Ocean, off Western Sahara

Fantastic news! We are not the last in the Fleet! Today we had the first of our daily radio link ups with other ARC boats and from the position reports have determined that at least one other boat is behind us. Brilliant! (not that we are racing of course.). The sea has remained calm and the day sunny and we have experimented with getting the best out of the boat when sailing downwind.

Until I learned about sailing I simply assumed that you got the wind behind you and let the sails blow you along. In fact boats sail more effectively when they get 'pulled' along by wind flowing over the sail, coming from the side or ahead of the boat. Boats do not sail as well downwind, that is with the wind directly behind them. Downwind sailing is the situation we are in now and it is likely to remain that way as we go across the Atlantic. It is a bit of a balancing act; if you can keep the wind directly behind it fills the sails and all is good. However, with the wind and the swell moving the boat around a bit you then get the wind slightly off to one side, the sails lose some of their fill, flap about and the situation can worsen. It's a bit like standing on one leg; once you lose concentration there's a lot of wobbling about before you get your balance back. We have used a spare pole to hold our sail out and stop it flapping too much for those moments when concentration is lost! It seems to be working well and certainly seems to be helping us in the light winds we are getting at the moment.

We have seen a couple of other boats on the horizon as the day has progressed and one two miles or so ahead that we hope we might catch with our new sail rig (not that we are racing...). This evening while we sat down to our curry 100 miles off the African coast we were joined by dolphins. And then another sailing boat came with 200 yards as it slowly overtook us - fortunately for us it was nothing to do with the ARC (not that we are...).