30’50.1S 041’34.0W course 248′ speed 7,3kn
Although we have not had rain every hour of the day, looking back it does feel that way. Our night watch was dry enough, the morning watch had no rain, but then the afternoon watch was soaking wet again and the evening watch was half drenched and after dinner it got dry.
During the morning, as predicted, the wind increased to a force 6 and we felt it was better to dowse the mainsail, so steering would not be too hard. With the reefed mainsail on we were doing 9 knots and a little more when we hurled down the waves. The throttle was big and so steering was intensive. Without the mainsail we were a little slower, 7,5 knots, but that was fast enough to keep controle over the ship in the waves and also make steering a little easier. This meant we were sailing under reefed mizzen, forestaysail and number 2 jib.
As said after dinner the weather got a little lighter, but we were still gunning along with 7 knots and so the mainsail stayed down until midnight. At that point speed was down to 6 knots, wind was around a force 4 to 5 and so the main went back up. The skies looked to have some clouds, but nothing too intense.. Right now we are hurling downwind though, with a shower to our port side, still hoping we can dodge the shower.
Jasmijn and Soete won the picture of the day, taken by Mark, as they were still in shorts all day long, even in the rain, saying it was still very warm. Cold is an emotion or something. Some have tried to take pictures of the wind and the waves, but they were just not good enough for the picture of the day, competing with the brave girls.
In the afternoon we made time to watch the first episode of Terror together. A series with scary elements, about the Franklin expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. Most on board have already read the book Erebus, which makes watching the series even better with all the background information.
We got some recipes for Christmas Pudding, which we asked for, and shall start the preperations tomorrow, see if we have the right tools to make it, the ingredients we have got.. we are just short of a pudding form..
All is well on board,
Jet
