We’ve been running off the wind, with it sitting around 130 degrees apparent and occasionally coming around to 100 degrees, in 20–25 knots of breeze. The forecasts are largely similar, other than the ECMWF showing more wind, which is always nice to see when you’re trying to decide how much sail to leave up.
I had been thinking about putting in the third reef, and yesterday at sunset I was having a look outside. There was a large patch of rain and squalls over to our starboard side, the sky was grey and looking behind didn’t look much better, and the wind was sitting at 22–25 knots.
I was humming and hawing.
There is an old sailors’ saying that if you think you should reef, then it’s probably too late already. And then there it was — a gust of 27 knots, which convinced me.
So, with the third reef in the main and back on course just after sunset, we settled in for a gusty night.
There is another sailors’ saying which, in this case, is probably more applicable than the one about reefing: “Don’t listen to old sailors’ sayings.”
The wind gradually eased off to 24, then 20, and was dropping off to 18 at times throughout the night. So at first light this morning I pulled the third reef out and we are cracking on again with two reefs in the main and the headsail, sitting at around 7.5 - 8 knots with 19 to 24 knts of breeze.
Yesterday we did 49 nm in six hours, from 06:00 to midday, but the third reef last night slowed us down and brought the average down.
I also noticed yesterday that there was something dragging behind the boat. I wondered if we had perhaps picked up a fishing line or some other piece of garbage and went to investigate.
I was a little concerned to discover it was the painter for the liferaft. The liferaft is fitted under the aft deck and is exposed to the waves. I guess some large waves had pulled the painter free of the housing and it was still tied onto the rail with a big loop of line trailing in the water. It would have needed a fairly strong tug to inflate the raft, but it’s not really something I wanted to risk finding out about halfway to New Zealand.
So that has now been secured, the third reef is out, and we’re back to making some decent miles.
Its definitely a little cooler already but the sun is shining today and its looking like a typical day in the tropics with blue sky and white fluffy clouds. Its fine if it stays like this all the way to NZ.