Daybreak came after a quiet clear night we sailed under full main and full Genoa, and a massive almost-full moon which made life on deck a real pleasure. Steering was easy and we made good progress, but once the sun was out, the first thing in our mind was to hoist the A4 right away.
The wind was 15 to 18 knots and it slowly built up to a constant 20 knots by mid-morning. A look at our log suggests we have done about 300 miles on the last 24 hours, give or take a mile or two I would say, but we were very close to that number for sure. Speeds have been quite consistently above 14 knots today and the wind coming up to 29-30 knots when some squalls show their face around in the afternoon, we watch speeds of up to 18-19 and 20 knots.
Top speed was 21.9 knots in the early afternoon, and as the wind started swinging to our backs and waves were making steering quite physical, we agreed to drop the gennaker when wind hit 30 knots again and we were surrounded by squalls. When the kite was down we found the halyard had kept chaffing and so we changed halyard (we had to repair the damaged one from the day before) and hoist the A4 straight away after the squalls had passed.
Is right before sunset now and we have been running with the spinnaker since daybreak. Our 24 hour log shows almost 320 miles, and that’s by far a boat’s record. That’s more than 13 knots average, and it’s been very exciting at times, so we cheer for that… and I have to finish this now so we have to drop the kite before the sun goes down.
Until the next blog and good winds to all!
The TWT sailing Team