Thursday, 11 December 2008

SailBlog - Wind great, swell not so good...

Graham
11/12/2008, Mid North Atlantic

It was a great relief to have the return of the wind after a week of very little. Now we have the wind of course, the swell on the sea ('motion of the ocean' as we say) has built up quite a bit, a lot in fact. Last night it was between 10 and 12 feet with a few 'monsters' appearing from the dark. Luckily, they are not as bad as they may sound as they are not breaking waves, but it does make for a very bumpy ride, so no one got a very good night's sleep last night. The wind was up to 31 knots again last night at times, so sails were reefed in again back to the size of pocket handkerchiefs, but the good news is that we have covered just under 150 Nm in the last 24 hours which is the furthest QUASAR IV has ever managed in a 24 hour period, so we are very happy. It's 820 Nm to go now to Saint Lucia so we are quite certain now that if the wind keeps up, we will get to at least one ARC party before the event closes! Fishing has taken a back step at the moment as a number (ie all) of our lures and many hooks have now been eaten/stolen by creatures of the ocean, and given the size of the lures and hooks, we are glad we have not met with our contenders! It has also put us off swimming in the sea next time the wind stops! Anyway, time for our daily radio net to see how far we are behind everyone else again and have a chat with a few boats near to us.

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