GPS: 23 59.059S 155 28.869E
Run: 170.4nm (308.4km)
Avg: 7knts
24hr: 167.6nm
This morning brought sunny skies, less than 1 metre swell and 12 knots of wind. Wolfgang who was on the helm was eager to unreef the mainsail and put out the headsail but had to wait until everybody had had their breakfast. Before we had chance to reset the sails it was Cindy’s turn to helm and she noticed a large area of rain on the radar so we decided to leave the main reefed and run with the staysail.
As we approached the rain we could see sheet lightening in the clouds so we turned most of the electronics off, brought in the staysail and turned the motor on. We motored through the rain for about an hour with the wind at only about 12 knots when suddenly the wind changed direction by 180 degrees and within 2 minutes was over 40 knots. Andrew steered into the wind to take pressure off the sails but it was too late, the mainsail was shredded. About 10 minutes later the wind was back to 14 knots and the rain was easing.
With nothing else on the radar we put up the mizzen and staysail to help balance the boat. We left the motor running at lower revs until Sue at the helm noticed the wind getting high again up to 31 knots and called Andrew and Wolfgang to take in the sails and we were back to motoring. A couple of hours later with Wolfgang on the helm and very messy 2m waves we decided to try the staysail again half reefed to give the boat a bit more stability. It’s now 2 hours later with Cindy back on the helm we are running full staysail and motor. The sea is slowly calming down so we’ll see what the moonlit night brings (full moon).
We’ve just enjoyed a very tasty dinner cooked by Wolfgang of pork chops, potato and veggies.
