It was indeed a lively night with the squalls last night. The radar shows the position of the squalls relative to Boni Venti and their strength – the centre is red, and you want to avoid the middle of the squall because gusting winds will be right behind, or in front, of you.
Robert was on watch at 03.00 when the call came out to shorten sail, so we furled the genoa completely and Robert & Will managed to reef the main, no mean feat when you’re flying downwind in winds gusting 40 kts with max speed 14 kts+ - pretty quick for a 58ft yacht! The rain was pouring into the cockpit despite the bimini and it was sleigh ride territory – exciting but rather hairy at the same time! So much easier when these squalls hit during the day, so you can see what’s happening. Strong winds pushed us on and we had our best day for mileage yet – 184 nm, with 1,171 to St Lucia.
A quiet morning after the disturbed night, with the crew all feeling the effects of the disturbed night and little sleep. Karen kept morale up with the weekend brunch of bacon and eggs – all that was missing was the Saturday papers. Then after lunch another big squall came in from astern, with more powerful winds than we had anticipated, and we shortened sail again wit two reefs in the main, and a full genoa, poled out. This will be our sail setting for the hours of darkness (approx. 1900 – 0715) so that we can quickly furl the genoa if we need to shorten sail.
Hopefully the squalls will avoid us this evening.......
All the best from the good ship Boni Venti!
Jonathan