The weather has shown a welcome change in our favour over the last 24 hours. The wind has gradually swung around to come from right behind us, and it's picked up a little to around 15 knots. With the wind and waves now giving us a nice little push, we’ve been able to ease the RPM down slightly while still holding our speed, and we're burning just over 25 litres per hour.
We've also picked up a favourable current of about 1 knot, which is a fantastic bonus. That's a steady 24 extra nautical miles every single day for free. When you're on a long passage, every little bit of efficiency counts.
The conditions settling down has also meant we could finally tackle a big job: transferring the 2,000 litres of fuel from the bladder we had in the cockpit into the main fuel tank. This has a couple of big benefits. It gets that significant weight down low and central in the boat, which improves stability, and it also frees up the entire cockpit.
The newly-opened space is a huge relief. The plan now is to put it to good use—we're going to have a BBQ and eat as much of the food as we can before we get to Australia, so we don't have to surrender it to Biosecurity. It's a win-win situation.
Everything is holding up well, and we're making excellent progress. We'll be able to enjoy the last few days in even more comfort with full a full belly!