it was twelve o’clock (lunch time) by the time we set off. It was a beautiful day, 10 to 15kt wind off the beam, 1.5 to 2m swell chasing us off the back quarter. A dream sail out in deep blue sea. We were doing great time reaching up to 8kts of speed as we surfed the waves.
Night time came and as we continued sharing the shifts it got harder to stay awake as the night went on. The wind didn’t make it easy as it move directly behind us. This gave us three choices. 1 use the spinnaker (too hard in the dark with a 2m swell off the back quarter). 2 jib back and forth zigzaging our way (taking a lot longer). Or 3 turn on the motor and run with the main sail to one side (tied back with the preventer). We oppted for 3 it was far easier with us being tired. We were still able to keep a speed of 7.5 to 8kts.