04’13.0N 026’00.4W course 170′ speed 4,7kn
What a day! Last night, we well and truly hit the doldrums, or they hit us. Around 04:00 we had thunder and lightning all around us, changing winds, no wind, gusts of wind and heavy heavy rain! It was just until daybreak around 06:00, but it just kept coming. Especially the lightning was spectacular. At one point we tried to get around some squally line as the lightning was coming right down and the wind was forcing us straight to the middle of it. So as the wind died out, we turned on the engine and headed for the windward side of the cloud.
As we came out of that squall line we kept the engine on. The wind was variable at best and slack or gone at some moments. By daybreak we had to decide to take all the sails down, as there was too little wind to do anything with. We still had over 350 miles to go to the equator, so that got me a little scared, what if we spend all these days under engine! Its already quite warm… with the engine on and no wind.. oeph!
During the day I got our smallest pool out, just to cool our feet on the aft. We used a jib on the horizontal to make a sun cover, shading a big part of the deck and canceled all presentations, just so everybody could lazy around, sleep in the shade outside or head downstairs for a nap.
And then the 00h watch handover came with a small surprise!! WIND! Not much, but enough to keep us going on a close reach, coming up a bit too much for the course line, but by doing so, at least keeping the sails full and some wind over the deck. The wind is still coming from the East North East, but we are also already experiencing a swell coming from the South East. That is very promising, we are heading in the right direction for the trade winds on the South side of the equator! Lets hope we can keep these sails filled with the forecasted 9 knots of wind, slowly but surely!
All is well on board, jet
