To Bermuda 8: A cross dressing Tortoise and other tales

You'll remember I went on about boat characteristics a little while ago - why a longer boat is faster than a shorter one, but that Bonny, the smaller boat was still keeping up with Titti4; both of course slow when compared with modern planning boats. Well overnight in the stronger winds, Titti4 cast off her Tortoise persona and became a Hare. 

It seemed that she was able to maintain a steady 7 knots, whereas on Bonny, to maintain full control of the boat I needed to reduce sail and plod on at 5-6 knots. Additionally, because the forecast was for pretty consistent 25 knot winds I set the sails with that in mind; 2 reefs in the mainsail and about a quarter of the polled out genoa rolled away. The wind, right from behind, was though anything but consistent; sometimes blowing at 25 knots (and chucking it down with rain) and at others no more than 15. In those winds we needed all sail set to maintain a decent speed but there was no way I was going to spend the night reefing and un-reefing the mainsail. I did though adjust the size of the genoa from time to time. I could do that from the cockpit. The sea too was pretty variable, sometimes pretty smooth and at others very lumpy.

Titti4 disappeared from my AIS screen around 0200. We had scheduled a call at 0900 this morning, but whilst I could hear Elli, she could not hear me.

It was a pretty crappy night sleepwise; the boat was sometimes rolling violently and anxiety about whether I might have to put a third reef in kept sleep at bay. To make matters worse, the AIS alarm kept going off as various ARC boats caught us up and passed us.

By lunchtime it was clear the blow had blown itself out and so I shook out the reefs. Then as the winds died further, I swapped the main for the cruising chute with the Genoa polled out to port. However, the wind veered further west and pushed us further east off our course for Bermuda. To sail closer to the wind meant dumping the chute, re-hoisting the mainsail and re-deploying the slutter jib. By the time all that was finished it was 1700.

As of 1750 we have 66 miles to run, are making 5-6 knots in exactly the right direction and should therefore be in tomorrow morning.

Weather and position wise, that's how things look now; the yellow/orange area to the right is the blow we got last night. The red dot is Bonny with the dashed line showing her heading. The dark green smudge is Bermuda. The patch of yellow top left is another little blow but it's due to drift north of Bermuda by the time we arrive. The bluey area in the middle has wind speeds of 12-15 knots coming from the West. Perfect conditions for the last 12 or so hours of the passage.