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Frances Louise V - November 13th - Day Four



Day Four has gone beautifully, in all senses of that word, without any hitches, technical or otherwise.  The three of us are now very well settled in to this great passage, and loving it. Frances Louise is just skipping along excitedly; David and I are both happy and relaxed, enjoying the magnificence of it all. 
 
After day break and my morning cup of tea I shook out the two over night precautionary reefs in the headsails.  We remained that way all day.  The wind, although a little up and down, has, by and large, steadied today at between 10 and 15 knots, and so we continued under full sail over night too. The seas have calmed considerably. We are still able to feel we are on a proper ocean, but I would describe the state as moderate with a few lumpy bits. Wind angle sometimes swings more north (from NE). We are proceeding downwind, directly along our rhumb line. The autopilot is set to course, not wind, as the motion seems to make the wind setting rather more sensitive than need be. We don’t have to worry about inadvertently gybing with our particular downwind sail plan. 
 
The boat is proceeding effortlessly, gently rising and falling over the waves. Frances Louise seems to have all well in hand, and is not needing (or getting) much intervention from us. Our speed has improved considerably now that we have our proper sails set. We completed 147.4 nm over Day Four and averaged 6.2 knots. We have left our little bubble of boats at the back of the fleet and are slowly reaching, and then passing, other boats. A 21m super yacht passed us this afternoon, and a couple of non ARC boats have come up on AIS. The commercial traffic is very light, and running parallel to the African coast, like us, so not an issue. Now we are away from the Canaries, thankfully, the incessant chatter we first had on the radio has gone. Can’t say it is totally peaceful though as the boat and sea make noises. 
 
Our morning checks were more extensive today, due to The Binocular Issue, but no problems found as a result of that, or anything else.
 
The watches just fly by, although we are not sticking to them during the day. The miles are being eaten up. On Day Four we passed half way and marked that with a hot shower! When we switch on Starlink we get loads and loads of WhatsApp messages that are being passed around the fleet. It’s good to hear that everyone is having fun, and good to note the support being given by Rally Control to those with breakages and gear failure. There are two other old Amel ketches in the fleet (both bigger than us). I feel guilty thinking this, but it was comforting to hear that one had similar issues to us in getting their ballooner up and flying. 
 
All is well in our sunny blue world.
 



 

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