If I recall it right it was about 0200 when Dennis woke me up and said ” shower is ready”. I jumped up went into the cockpit and got my shower straight forward at the helm station.

We were fully hit by a nice squall!

Wind vane steering was not possible anymore. Thus, I had to take over by manual steering. As MaRe stalled already I had no speed to steer her. With engines I brought her into a direction where she could pick-up wind, accelerate, and get some speed. She enjoyed her run.

After about 1/2 hour, the squall was gone. Dennis went to bed, because it was the end of his watch, I changed to dry clothes and enjoyed this feeling a lot.

As there was no wind to sail, I secured the boom that it doesn’t swing and furled the genoa almost completely. Not fully, just for the chance that the wind comes back.

Log book writing, tea trinking, eating a small snack, writing emails, etc, time passed by quickly. Regular checks at the radar screen showed nothing for a long time. But then I saw at the edge of the radar screen a huge red spot. Red means it comes towards MaRe. As fast as possible I prepared MaRe for a fast ride. Hydrogenerator out of the water. Main sail ready for sailing up wind and the genoa unfurled. And then the squall hit MaRe.

It was fun seeing her accelerating and ploughing through the nightly see. On the radar I saw were the next one will come from. However with the speed MaRe ran, I could steer away from the next one.

As soon as the squall came, as soon it dissolved itself. It’s just a squall.

The morning sun came out and it was just a beautiful scene. “Unfortunately” the wind increased very slowly and gently. Because with wind we need to sail. So I called Dennis for hoisting the gennaker. As Tjasa was also up I asked him to his work with Tjasa and explain her all what’s needed; I did the other preparations. For her gennaker hoisting was the first time. It went well.

Dennis went back to bed. Tjasa prepared breakfast for two, MaRe sailed nicely alone steered by the autopilot’s wind vane mode. I wrote emails etc. Everyone did the own activities.

Then the monkey with the tin tool came and stole the wind again. As the wind could not escape from the monkey, I had mercy with the sadly hanging down gennaker. If a gennaker can’t fly, it simply is sad and prefers to get doused and stored away. There it regains all is power for the next flight.

When I went to douse it, I saw at the horizon something coming up. A huge dark grey front was building up. Thus, we wanted to get the gennaker down as fast as possible. But, there’s always a but, the sock could not be pulled down. Something stuck up there and I could not get it moving down again. So we took the gennaker down without putting it in it’s sock. When the top was down, we saw that it had to do with the lines inside. Just touching it solved the problem too quickly to have a chance to analyze it. Then Dennis pulled the gennaker up again while I hold the sock. This way the gennaker moved back into his sock and we could store it away.

Setting quickly the main only at reef 3 for a test and unfurled the genoa partially, and then the squall hit us week prepared.

For sure MaRe leaped forward on course. But we watch the incredible scenario where big raindrops hit the sea surface and smaller droplets escape from the surface, creating a grey but sparkling cover over the sea. I love this and have it seen already often. However, I am always fascinated newly.

This squall went by as well. We tried to sail a bit more but at 1 Bft and less, the gennaker will hang down sadly. So we packed all sails away and enjoyed the time at a glassy sea.

The captain announced rum & biscuit for all, but it turned out as coffee and cookies. Why don’t the chefs of the pantry never listen to the captain’s orders?