Time Out - Time Out - Day 7 Bermuda to Azores

Day 7 in our Atlantic crossing. We passed the half way point this afternoon 947nm sailed since we left Bermuda, so we are on the downhill stretch. If the winds continue we should see the Azores in approximately 6 days.

The weather has been dominated by the Norton system coming across from the US which is bringing dull grey sky’s, random shows, and high winds. For the second time in the life of TimeOut we have the 3 reef in the main sail, probably not justified with the conditions, but I’d rather loose a kt in speed and sleep better at night. It seems that it is always nighttime when the wind starts exerting itself, but the boat can handle much more than this, and we sail along at 8/10 kts which means we can done 170nm in 24h. We have another 48h of this NW system before it overtakes us, and we should get some better weather coming through behind, we may even get some Sunshine, which we haven’t seen for 4 days now!

Surprisingly, we see quite a number of other boats, as everybody ultimately converges on the Azores, the spread is pretty tight. We don’t see any of the ARC boats yet, even though we are starting to overtake them, but we see other sailers who are cross the pond indépendant of any organization. Had a long chat last night with a Solo sailer on his 15m boat who had been with us for the last few days.

Everybody is well fed, and getting some decent sleep as well the last 24 hours, so all is good here on TimeOut.

Nautical Miles travelled - 980
Distance to Destination - 940
Fish caught - ZERO :-(

Jim Saunders - sv TimeOut