Kinsale to Porto Santo Madeira Archipelago - Day 7

Dawn brought a visit from a pod of dolphins

The wind picked up again on Tuesday so we spent most of the day sailing fast with a double-reefed main, full staysail and a few rolls in the genoa. We are very pleased with our new sails, the staysail in particular. It’s a lot larger than our previous staysail, which was based on its predecessors and, we now realise, wasn’t that much larger than our storm jib. When we took commission of it, we did wonder if the new staysail would be too large but, actually, it is the perfect size. When it’s windy (mid-20s+) and we have a double-reefed main, we can sail fast with just the staysail unrolled as a headsail, whereas previously we needed to have a few rolls of genoa out too. Rolling that ‘bit’ of genny away as the wind rose further was always a concern, what with it flogging as it was rolled away and everything else that goes with roller furling a powerful headsail in a strong wind. The new staysail is good to higher windspeeds and rolling it away as the wind increases further is far less of a drama.

Midday, before the cloud and squalls started to arrive

Whilst we had good sailing all day on Tuesday, the sky was a lot cloudier in the afternoon and there were more rain cells around bringing with them concomitant changes in wind direction and strength. A couple of particularly impressive squalls (to around 26kts) were noted in the log…..once they’d gone safely past!

At 1800hrs we passed sailing 3000nm since we left Guernsey in May and at 2200hrs we hit 900nm on this passage.

Passage Statistics
Position at midday 9 Sep: N39 57.18 W014 32.91
Position at midnight (0001hrs) 10 Sep: N38 38.69 W014 45.37
Midday to midday distance through water: 169 nautical miles (average 7 knots)
Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 163 nautical miles
Midnight to midnight distance through water: 167.3 nautical miles (average 7 knots)
Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 165 nautical miles
Total miles covered through water: 914 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Porto Santo): 343 nautical miles (1170nm passage)

Kinsale to Porto Santo - Day 7