Starblazer - 11/11/2016 – A mixed bag.

The weather forecast for Thursday proved remarkably accurate, that doesn’t
stop me complaining though! During the morning the wind was 20-25 knots
with gusts to about 30 which was the original forecast before we received an
update suggesting gusts to 35. The forecast also mentioned wind from SW, W
and NW, the forecast for later in the day was for the wind to reduce to 13 –
18 with gusts to 25 which has also occurred. So what is my moan? The wind
direction has actually changed from just west of South to just west of North
so we had a boisterous beat, a more sedate broad reach then a rocky run.
The sails needed constant tweaking though we are not very pro-active! The
main problem was the confused seas. We were confused so the seas have every
reason to be so too. The swell had died down a bit but the wind driven seas
were more than making themselves felt as they were from a completely new
direction.

Having moaned about the wind and sea conditions, we had a much better day’s
run to noon covering 143 nM but that did include 7 hours of engine the
previous afternoon. Today’s result should be better still but it very much
depends on what the wind does in the next 6 hours. The sailing was fast
until midnight, somewhat slower since and the forecast suggests the wind
will drop further and veer around to NNE. When John gets up it will be
daylight so we’ll shake out the reef and pole out the jib if we can work out
where the wind is actually coming from!

Life on board goes on as normal, I am busy cross stitching some Christmas
cards and playing Candy Crush on the iPad while John reads. There isn’t
much to report except the weather, boat problems (not that many, none
serious) and what we eat. Yesterday evening’s dinner was sausage casserole,
the last that I’d cooked and frozen last week, with mashed potato and sweet
potato.

Joyce