Tintin is making great progress at the moment. The winds have stayed
with us, 18-22 knots on the beam. We have the mainsail and the genoa up
and the boat is moving along with a great sense of purpose.
With slightly lighter winds yesterday we hoisted the cruising chute,
our large blue foresail, and went flying along. It was a bit too much
for Wendy to cope with so we hand steered - which was fun but pretty
tiring. With the moderate sea state waves of 2-3 metres height are
arriving at our port quarter and nudging the bow up into the wind. It
all gets more exciting then as the apparent wind increases and the boat
heels more.
For a more relaxed night we switched to the electrically driven
autohelm, which steers according to a compass bearing rather than
relative to the wind direction (which is what Wendy does).
We had rather grey skies for the weekend, but the skies have cleared
and we have trademark tradewind fluffy clouds.
However, without Richard our fishing efforts have been poor - few
attempts and very unsuccesful, including getting the fishing line
caught in towed generator. Doh!