estrella damm sailing team 08-dic / los skippers nos explican
Jonathan McKee
thing was that we did not have to hand steer all the time, so it was a much more relaxing night. You could sit at the nav station and control the pilot from there, just watching the instruments and feeling the heel. It was kind of like a video game. It was a very rainy night, so it was good to be mostly downstairs!
This morning the wind died a bit, so we put the big kite back up again. It has generally been a little less wind today, so not too dramatic. Lots of rain still. Now we are below the latitude of Good Hope, and still going south in a hurry. We are now at 33 degrees.
We made some improvements to the autopilot settings – it’s incredibly ‘clever’, with a range of interdependent settings, so the wind mode is working better, as long as the waves are not too big. That has made tonight much more restful. Even though it is blowing 20 – 24 knots and we have the A2 up, the pilot is doing a pretty good job (only 1 crash so far). You still have to monitor it, which means being on deck, but it is far less tiring not having to hand steer for the whole 4 hour watch. I have been listening to podcasts and music on my ipod, drinking lots of hot tea, and just passing the time. At least it is not raining tonight, so much more pleasant on deck.
Tommorrow am is forecast to get windier, maybe 35 knots, so we will be shifting to a smaller sail, putting a reef in the main, and going even faster!