Morning all, hope you slept well. Very pleasant evening off the coast of Portugal. Just cracked off the breeze and sailing with our big genoa, for the none sailors amongst you, that means easy sailing without massive spinnakers which can cause problems especially in the middle of these long, pitch black nights! We tacked at 0330 UTC onto a south east course after the latest positions came in. We wanted to stay west in order to benefit from better winds today but yet be close enough to Portugal (to the East) in order to benefit from the fresh northerly winds which are due to establish themselves around 2100 this evening there (Thursday 8 November). This tack will no doubt see us take a hit on the rankings but we have made our choice and will stand by it now. Although having said that we may well tack back again for a short time depending on how the wind swings. (In fact we have just put a short hitch back to the west again). We have set a rough waypoint of where we want to be tomorrow evening and are making our way there as fast as possible.
From the latest weather information we have, and from looking at the synoptic charts, we believe those further west of us although further south initially, will have to sail into light headwinds whilst we are riding downhill. This weather system is going to really divide the fleet and for now we see it as our great chance. After that, we then have to negotiate Madeira (prob. pass to the East) and then the Canaries (prob. pass through the middle). Better keep some of our plans quiet though in case this info makes it back to our competitors! For now at least, we are battling for the honour of being the first British boat with Peter Harding, sailing with former Vendee Glove skipper Anne Liardet, and Simon Clarke, sailing with ‘kiwi ‘Dave Lindsay. Alex Bennett and Ifor Pedley were riding high earlier in the week but they have slipped down the rankings as they take an extreme east option. For those of you wondering, despite Tanguy and his sponsors being French, the boat is actually registered in the Isle of Man hence the GBR sail number and I’m obviously prime British beef (well ish, makes me hungry that thought……….)
For those of you wondering how navigating differs to the Mini Transat for instance, then apart form having access to commonly available online weather information, we are also allowed to use navigation software onboard. We use Deckman a progam supplied by B&G. Obviously with Madeira being over 500 miles away, things may well change but at least the northerlies look set to stay for a while at around 10 knots. We need to be aware of the huge wind shadows behind Madeira and the Canary islands which can influence the wind over 50 miles away.
Anyway I better get back on deck, tonight is a lot more relaxed and for the first time we are using the pilot a little. With a flat sea and steady wind she is sailing a much straighter course than we could manage and instead we’ve turned our attention to constant sail trimming and looking at the weather of course……….weather-routing-options.doc
