20’25.8N 035’01.4W course 348′ speed 4,8kn
These miles are not coming easily, they just dont come cheap neither. We are fighting for every tenth of a knot extra, but its not easy.. We shook the reef in the night, we set the big jib around 10:30, we then changed back to the second (smaller) jib around 14:00h and reefed the mainsail around 15:00h. Happy with the speed of 6,5 knots under reefed sails, we cleaned the deck and just as I wanted to release the preventer on the mainsail, which I forgot to take of as we set the main… we hit a wave, the boom wanted to shoot up, it could not due to the preventer.. and so minutes after reefing the sail, we ripped the old mainsail just below the second reef..
We then spend two hours going at 2,5knots while changing from the old sail, to the new set. We had already changed the forestaysail, but now Tecla was demanding her beautiful new mainsail back on as well! We had strong winds when we started.. but as we set it with a reef in, it felt like we should have set the whole main sail… But the weather report was still saying winds up to 19 knots, so we kept the reef.
Needless to say, dinner was late. Spaghetti Bolognese, after hard work, this is probably the best meal possible.
Right now we are sailing in between showers, there is a force 5 in the showers.. Around the showers its a strong force 4, but every now and then we enter a patch of force 3… and that is frustrating.. should we take the reef out? NO, here is wind again, and 10 minutes later.. we are bobbing around with 4 knots again.
Until light we will keep the reef in, in the light we can better see the showers and anticipate the wind. And there are more people awake to help take away sail if needed.
So for now, settle in and calm down.
All is well on board, Jet
