Last night was pure torture. It was quite windy so we reefed but this left us at the mercy of giant waves from two directions turning us off course and pushing us into deep troughs. The slamming of waves and sail and the huge rolling pitches made sleep impossible.
Apart from insomnia all was well with us. However, some of our fellow Vikings had bad experiences. Jan and Miguel, fellow short-handed sailors, broke their spinnaker pole so that will make a downwind passage more difficult. Seas the Day had a huge Chinese fishing boat decline to answer their calls on VHF 16, instead motoring straight at them with all their lights ablaze. Sea Kairos hit a whale but sustained no damage – they think the whale might have been a floating carcass. Happily everyone is OK.
Thankfully today is a little calmer. The wind is frustratingly from the east when we had hoped for a slightly more northerly direction. Our plan is still to sail south and then along the 12 degree latitude to avoid the worsening weather. This is now more difficult and we are heading in a more westerly direction than planned. Jonathan had to spend an hour on the rolling foredeck moving blocks along the boom to try to avoid chafing of the ropes. Hopefully these are now set, so we can continue our downwind sail without any further excitement.
