Steady wind

Good, fast and pretty comfortable Beam Reach sailing on a Northeast course after gybing last night. Decks are drier, the Europa is not dipping her railings and bulwarks so much into the water and her progress is better than on other past days. During the last 24 hours she has sailed 189 nautical miles, 1249 to reach the Horn in a straight line, behind her, Auckland lies already at 3786nm.

But things were about to change… easier, more comfortable sailing doesn’t last for too long while dealing with the latitudes of the so-called Furious 50’s. And it all starts during the late evening and as the night falls. Now the winds have increased to 30, 35kn.

A small-scale atmospheric disturbance carrying a localised area of powerful winds is passing just south of us.

Like that, the new day, now the 5th of November, welcomes us with rising winds and larger seas and swells.

Although, after having a close look at the weather forecast, our routing brought us to actually sail northeast over the little but fierce area of strong winds associated with a small low pressure hurriedly travelling eastwards, we still hit a steady 35 to 40kn, with stronger gusts. And there we go, facing it braced Beam Reach and with squares just to the Topsails set, plus Lower staysails and inner jib. The Europa rides the bad weather at 9 to 10kn. With the downside of having the main deck often underwater, waves crashing against her Portside hull. A pretty wild ride. A quite wet journey. A record of distance covered in one day during this voyage. The 220 nautical miles covered today brought us to 1041 nm from the Horn, while we just passed the 4000nm total sailed since departure.