Easting our way under backing winds and rainy weather by Jordi Plana Morales

Still a few days to go, we find ourselves today 900 nm off at sea from our goal in Namibia, with a favourable forecast to keep the good southeasterlies over an ocean where different currents meet, where deep waters are brought to the surface, eddies and gyres form. A complex oceanographic area where the West Wind Drift deflects north along the Atlantic African coast, while in the south, the interaction of this Benguela Current with the retroflection into the Indian Ocean of the Agulhas Current produces strong eddies and swirls that travel west, affecting large areas of the mid-Atlantic. In the atmosphere, dry warm areas of high pressure lay north of us along the continent, to the south, the air is colder and moist, the atmospheric pressure lower. Where we sail — a region between both — with a high taking over us from the west and a depression closer to the coast. A combination that makes for the development of frontal areas, rainclouds, squalls, and strong shifting winds.

A good recipe too for good sailing and for keeping the watches occupied on the lines and sails.

And so it was — a rainy, busy journey.

Overcast, grey, drizzle, and proper pouring rain. The wind blows at a good 20 to 25 kn. During the day it backs from a northwesterly to southeasterly. It turned around our stern, keeping us engaged in bracing several times. Step by step we end up from one tack to being sharp in the other, adapting the rig to keep a northeasterly course. Between the shifting winds, several showers pass by, loaded with rain and wind, that make for dousing and setting again the higher squares, until at night royals are furled.

But it is just before dinnertime when the most intense wind shift happens, announced by a squall line. The last bit of bracing leaves the yards close-hauled on starboard tack — a point of sail now to keep for a while.

A nice job that made for sailing 123 nm in the last 24 hours.