10:26am local time, 16:26UTC:
02deg23.637S, 091deg00.651W
speed: 5knots, heading 218deg
We had a light N tail wind for most of the night, this morning it strengthened ever so slightly to about 7 knots so turned of the engine and am now flying the spinnaker (no main sail). I set it on my own no problems. We are heading about 220deg and doing around 4,5 knots, the spinnaker stays 'full' most of the time, the boat seems well balanced with the auto pilot hardly doing any work. It weird to be at the start of such a long sail. This morning i tied a rope around my waist and went overboard to dislodge the little 'speedo wheel' which got stuck. Once in the water (very far from land and 3000m deep) i saw that i was surrounded by millions of box jelly fish. Needless to say i did the job and got back on board fast. Without the hull speedo working the wind instrument cannot differentiate between true and apparent wind directions. Now its working fine again. The sea is a bit confused but nothing like when we left Panama. I have two options at the moment: head ssw under spinaker with the wind at 160deg (just off a dead run) at 4,5knots or head due west (towards our destination at a very broad reach) under full sail doing around 5,5-6knots. I chose the former as it will get us down to the real trade winds faster. From what i could see on the wind charts it looks as if the ITCZ is 'higher' (above 8 degS) further west (towards the middle of the pacific) and its its lower (down to 12deg) near south america (just south of us and Galapagos). According to my reasoning the Trade winds are therefore closer to the equator the further I go away from south america as they curve up around the SE Pac high pressure. For me this means i can sail at a sw angle to get to the trades the quickest as opposed to sailing due south. Can you check the charts to confirm this? I am aiming for lat10deg and long97deg (its my short term waypoint) and i am hoping to find good trades by the time i reach lat8deg. I will turn due west for Fatu Hiva by no further south than Lat10Long97, hopefully even a bit sooner.
I have my fuel consumption well worked out: I figured I have a total of 135 engine hours available to me (at one engine). If i have to i am going to use 75 of these hours to get to the trades (= approx 3 days motoring). Then i will have 60hrs available as back up. This does not include 2 tanks of diesel (20 gallons)for the gennie (=approx 80hrs) which i worked out uses 4 times LESS fuel (1,2 liter/hour) than the volvos (4,8liter/hour). Since leaving Wreck Bay we have used 20hrs of fuel and we now have 115 fuel hours available. So this bit of spinaker sailing that we are doing in the doldrums now is a bonus. If necessary I will motor for another 40hrs by which time we should be feeling some decent trades. If not we will just wallow in the doldrums like the sailors of olden times until we get wind. Who should we eat first?
Everything else on the shimmi is doing great, both engines are doing great. Our only worry is our watermaker which is down to maybe 6 liters an hour (it should be 20liters/hour!). I am keen to use the spectra cleaning solutions to see if i can unfoul the membrane but i am also scared that it will cause total loss of output. Our rain catcher works but obviously we need rain. Our tank is currently at just under 3/4 so there is no cause for alarm. Pray for rain though. AND WIND!!!
I have now winged out the jib on the starboard side so we have canvass billowing out in front of shimmi. The going is slow and hot because shimmi outsails the wind, then the sails flop a bit, then they fill and power up, then shimmi surges up to 6 knots (in 7 knots of apparent wind), then she outsails the wind.... and so it goes on.
Josh just went mad with the paints, ending up hand painting most of himself and the saloon table. Chon is now rinsing him off leaving a long colourful paint trail in shimmi's wake. We have no lines in the water but maybe i will put them out now that we are on a stable point of sail.
Andy is doing way better, he did a good watch and is now passed out. Indie has to find his feet again, a bit frustrated but coping well. The adults are tired, its going to take a while to settle into our watches.
