Well popping out of the North edge of the ITCZ was a relief. We’ve fished in the Atlantic Gulfstream and it’s amazing how well defined the Gulfstream is. The temperature break and change in no current to 3 or more knots is very well defined. The ITCZ seemed to be the same, as when we finally found our way to the Northern edge the wind came from South Southeast to East to Northeast quite rapidly, and suddenly we were in what’s called accelerated trade wind conditions. We think of trade winds as somewhat steady (ish) 15 knots kind of stuff. What we encountered yesterday evening was more like 18 – 24 knots with gusts to 30. That continued through the night and most of today, but just around 2200 ship’s time things seemed to start settling down. We actually were tooling along in the 5 – 6 knot SOG range. To slow down in the gusts earlier today and balance out the boat a little better, we furled about half the jib away. The jib is a little blade on this boat – we’ve a large roachy main sail, but it’s quite amazing how much power the jib adds.
When the boat began to slow as a result of moderating winds, I rolled the jib back out and immediately got nearly 2 knots in additional speed. We’re still on reef #2 on the main sail and we’ll leave that in until things settle a little further, but as it is we’ve got more of a steady 17 knots breeze now just barely aft of the beam, and we’re easily averaging 7.3 knots with reef #2 and the full jib. That’ll do for the night, and tomorrow morning if things look and feel right we’ll get rid of reef #2 and go back to #1. That decision will depend more on sea state than wind, as the seas are also settling down and the ride continues to improve. We still have the occasional wave slamming into us and douching the entire cabin top and cockpit, but that’ abating as well.
The weather forecast continues to change, but in a good way with moderating conditions – a bit lighter winds but still very nice sailing conditions over the next few days, and much less of a big blue hole thing nearer Hawaii. We’re going to keep our speed up as the conditions and comfort level allow, but by gosh we might just get there by Friday morning.
We passed the half way mark about 0900 this morning, and we just rolled under 1000 miles to go. If we average 6.5 knots for the remainder of the voyage we’ll be able to anchor in Reeds Bay and clear in Friday! Can anybody say “icy cold craft beer and a cheeseburger”??????
As I keep telling Isabel, “everybody needs a fantasy”.
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