Raritan - Raritan – 11/30/18 Day Six: Gybing to the South to Stay in Better Pressure

Raritan enjoyed a beautiful day of trade wind sailing under sunny skies and mild temperatures. We sailed West most of the day, clicking off miles toward St. Lucia. As the wind backed, our course began to bring us more North than we liked, so before dark we gybed to gain more distance to the South and stay in favorable wind pressure. Weather reports indicate that the breeze is stronger to the South, so we’re heading that way.
We finally have enough experience with the boat that gybing is pretty routine. This time we spent only a few minutes bare-headed while we moved the preventer to the starboard side. The wave angle is really different on port gybe and took a long time to get used to. We used the autohelm for a couple of hours, but ultimately decided to turn it off—it just doesn’t work well in a following sea.
Dinner was Doug’s quinoa, broccoli and chicken casserole, which was very good and one of our last pre-made meals. Our fresh food is holding up well, and we are enjoying our fruits and vegetables while we can. Given our rate of progress, it’s pretty clear we’re going to be enjoying lots of pasta, rice and canned food near the end of the trip.
As of 2400, we had covered 203 nautical miles over the last 25 hours (we moved our clocks back an hour today as we move west), which is a good day. Distance to our St. Lucia waypoint also dropped by 170 nautical miles, suggesting our course was efficient. The gybe to the South will hurt our VMG, so tomorrow’s numbers won’t be as good.
--Doug and Rob