Vagaris - Progress update

The past three days has seen a few milestones. We've passed the half way mark, 1500 miles away from land which we celebrated with a little tipple of each person's choosing.

We have definitely reached the trades, as we are now in a reoccurring cycle of (currently) light winds from the East during the clear days of blue sky's, puffy cumulus clouds and lovely hot weather, followed by growing clouds and squalls at night. They tend to come about two in the morning, so if we've been able to sail through the early evening with the parasailor up, we've had to get all hands on deck for a quick drop before the rain and winds hit.

This morning around 4am we were brave and thoughed one out (due to sub-10 Kt background winds) and had an exhilarating ride along the front of a squall in 17 knots. If they were all like this we'd be more confident, but some deliver deluges of water with some extra wind, some 20+ knot winds, some bugger all. It's bit of a lottery and we're sailing quite conservatively as we don't want to damage anything.

We've also been reading about people finishing already. The large racing boats have beaten the record and finished in 8 days. We hope to finish in 20!

Lots of people are going faster than us, which is a bit annoying, but we're doing the best we can and I think by playing it safe with our routing decisions have had lighter winds than many. The past 3 days has seen predominantly sub 12knot winds from behind which has reduced our speed to 5-6 knots and decimated our daily miles total. For the past couple of days we've travelled a very poor 130ish per day.

The parasailor has edged us along making the best out of the light winds. In 8 knots true from directly behind we've been able to make 4 knots through the water, which although not fast is pretty impressive.

Occasionally we've resorted to the engine, particularly when in sub 8 knot lulls between squalls and sail changes, but despite having fuel enough for 8 hours per day motoring for the rest of the trip we are trying to sail where possible.

Other news...

Steve has played his first computer game for 30 years on the iPad and obsessively finished all 10 levels on Monument Valley in a number of marathon sessions.

Jax has continued serving up fantastic food and has just made gravity defying Rice Krispy marshmallow cakes for a sundowner lift.

Adrian has fixed the solar display panels which show the exact charge being generated by the panels. So far the best has been 22Amps.

Kath has continued her sun and moon sights with the sextant and is now getting fixes with 20 mile accuracy.

We've been fishing, but due probably to general incompetence and lack of experience have failed to catch anything yet.

All is well on yacht Vagaris - we just wish we had a little more wind and speed.

Adrian
Sy Vagaris