11/01/17 F4 in the sunshine
Rhumbrunner
Wed 11 Jan 2017 13:35
I did my first graveyard watch last night; thats 0000-0300. It was uneventful, thankfully. No changes to make, just tracking passing vessels, with their AIS data on the chart plotter. I start my next watch at 1000, through to 1200.
The wind has shifted to the West, to give us an apparent wind of WSW. Seeing this coming in the weather data we dropped the jib pole and stowed it. The jib is now in tighter for the beam reach. We are flying full jib, full main and full mizzen. We have just under 20 knots of average apparent wind.
We're trucking along at 7-8 knots over ground. We think Armel and Alex are now out of reach, but we are still mid fleet in the Vendee Globe and hopeful of a good finish. We're missing news of Alex closing in on Armel.
Today started 100% overcast, grey sky, dark grey sea, grey white horses. Pretty grim. Now the sun has broken through and it's breaking up the cloud.
We managed 180 miles on day 1, we're set for something similar today.
11/1/17 1345
Wind now dropped to 10-15 knots, we've come upwind a touch to return to the track to St Helena, after following the wind shifts. Tightened the sails and again making over 7 knots over ground.
189 miles for day 2, good going.
Fishing lines are out but no bites yet.
Current Position 11/1/17 13.45GMT 29:50.028S 013:19.283E
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