MaRe ran nicely! At 0800 I checked the day distance she made: 150 NM A great position to make it for the same value at noon. And MaRe made a noon day distance of exactly 150 NM. But at around 1500 the monkey with the tin tool came back and stole piece by piece a…

During the day MaRe ran in the 5 – 6 KN range through the bumpy sea. A bit more wind came up and we reefed the Genoa a bit more to allow the hydrogenerator to stay in the water longer. (Typically I take it out when the STW is around 6 – 6.5 KN.) Around…

Day distance at noon is 99 NM today. One short of the 100. As we are now out of the doldrums with days of drifting, I want to calculate daily at noon the day distance we made. It is the distance we sail in 24 h. Normally it’s calculated from noon to noon, but it…

Dennis caught his first mahi-mahi. It was 60 cm long and will be just enough for a fish dinner tonight. I’m looking forward to the first fish dinner on this long sail.

In the early afternoon we saw a huge cloud and squall coming towards MaRe and we prepared ourselves. MaRe was already in the safe state with reef 2 in the main sail. But we put on our foul weather great to not get completely wet again. Then the wind increased and MaRe increased her speed…

About two hours ago we decide to enter the SE trade winds, the wind system in the South-East Pacific. “Entering” means changing our course directly to the Gambier Island. On one side the decision was easy and on the other it was difficult. After many considerations over the last days, and this morning, the decision…

… during a windless watch. During my watch, at about 0520 i felt that wind is coming. 5 – 6 KN of wind I saw at the wind meter. After checking direction, pulled the genoa out fully and opened it more, using the barber hauler. While i wanted to trim the wind angle the wind…

What the night did NOT bring us was sufficient wind to sail beyond the latitude 5 deg S. We had to get the sails down before midnight. With the wind missing, they became just useless accessories flapping in the wind. A squall which passed us without influencing us much. A report from SY Katinka, that…

As I used in the previous narration the word “routine”, here is a routine we did around noon. At PRT we saw a wonderful squall carrying cloud approaching. Too nice to neglect it. When we were sure, it will hit us, we made the “squall routine”. – Furling the genoa – Starting the engines –…

After a night with some strong wind shifts and a short stronger wind period, the night and the morning was less of the routine pattern than I first thought. The wind shifts were funny. First we sailed for a while to SE then to SW and finally to NW. When we sailed NW I thought…