S 06° 55.567
E 170° 30.348

It started all with nice sailing, the continuation of the sailing during the day. Around 1800 we reduced the main to reef 2 to be prepared MaRe for the night.

At around 2200 we got the first squall with a peak TWS of 20 KN. 50 min later we set the small jib for easier tacking, and tacked immediately. The course back was as I estimated still good. We only had to sail in a “Kartoffelacker”-sea.

But then the wind turned strongly and we were heading S, which is where we came from. Thus another tack at shortly after midnight.

At 0150 I took all the sails down. No-wind time. The wind union just decided to stop working and MaRe was adrift once again.

I woke up Tobi to take care of drifting MaRe and I went to sleep after quite some hours non-stop working. Because it started raining I took a quick shower. Rain plus 1/2 a liter of water and the shower was done. Feeling fresh and clean again, I felt on the salon sofa and must have “died” instantly.

Tobi was supposed to wake me up when there is wind coming. He did it and we had already 13 KN of wind. I was happily surprised. This was shortly before 0400.

We started our normal sail-up procedure. While I was working at the mast, I felt already the approaching squall on my back. And it came before we could get the genoa unfurled.

Although we had enough margin in terms of wind speed, I unfurled the genoa only to 2 bars.

Then we got the full squall wind. With short peaks of 23 KN. It was the first time that I got a squall with that wind speed in the Western Pacific. On the east, this was quite normal. It was a long squall. It lasted at least 30 min, during which we haata fast and bumpy run along our route. However, squalls are of a very short life time.

What followed was again a “Kartoffelacker”. With minimal wind, MaRe started moving towards the next WPT, being still 500+ NM ahead of her.

As we still have some dark and unfriendly looking nimbus clouds hanging around at the horizon, I kept the main sail in reef 2 for the time being.

We got last night in the most northern part of trough, which was announced in the bulletin of Fiji Meteorological Services.

Since 0720 we are again adrift…