50’08.5N 000’26.1W course 078′ speed 7,6
Sometimes a plan comes together very nicely. We were able to catch the tide in the morning of the 30th and keep it until late afternoon on the same day! Doing over 90 miles in 12 hours! But of course inevitably the current changed and our average dropped to 4,5 knots for 6 hours. The last bit of current with us, was just off the Channel islands, also the reason we needed the current with us, because otherwise our average would have been closer to 2,5 knots! We were sailing a broad reach doing 10 knots for at least 2 hours!
The Channel islands were visible around 14:00 oclock. But we knew they were there an hour earlier, because we had cellphone reception all of a sudden! This was a good thing, because we had been talking about the music of the 4Tuoze Matrozen, so finally we could download some of their best song! That was good for a good laugh for those who had never heard of them and it was a trip down memory lane for me.
Photo is “unreef”/”ontreven”. Picture of the day
We reeved during the night before, we unreeved next to the Channel Islands and we reeved again just 2 hours ago. Wind has been unstable during the whole watch. Joel had to start the engine at the end of his watch as the wind had disappeared completely. And for about 2,5 hours we were under sail with engine on. Around 2 oclock we had a small breeze again. And before I could finish my midnight snack we were doing 9,4 knots… that was a bit much with full main and full mizzen sail. We reeved the mainsail and the wind seemed to increase even more. We reeved the mizzen en before we had cleared the deck of all ropes, we felt like the wind had decreased to a force 3 while it had been at least a force 5 before. We still have the current with us now, doing 8 knots, reefs still in and the wind is back to being a good force 4.
Tonight the wind will increase, strong winds from the North will pester us for a while making our progress hard. Our plan is forming, but we are also still very much in a hurry. Depending is we are in time to catch the next tide through the straight of Dover.
Just under 20 miles till we cross the Greenwich Meridian and are back in the Eastern part of the World!
All is well on board, Jet
