After a great deal of deliberation we set off as planned this morning. The near and long range forecast is for a windy crossing in Force 5 to 7. That should be fine as it is mainly downwind sailing and the boat should perform well. Unfortunately there is also a 3-4m short time period swell predicted and that could make the passage very uncomfortable. We’re not certain that we have made the right decision in leaving today but there seems to be no let up in the winds over the next few weeks. We’ve had lots of discussions with our fellow Vikings over the last few days and in the end we all decided to leave today. That said, we’ve left a few boats behind in Mindelo waiting to have some repairs.
So far today has been breezy with winds of 20-25 knots and we’ve been sailing well at 7-8 knots with goose winged foresails. We have decided to aim quite far south to 12 degrees latitude as that should take us south of stronger winds and bigger swell. After that we’ll head west. Jonathan made bread before we departed and we baked it whilst under sail. The weather is good and we can see the AIS tracks of our fellow sailors. We’re just about to have supper and settle into our night watches.
