Kinsale to Porto Santo Madeira Archipelago - Day 2

The weather continued much as the previous day. Brisk, bouncy and wet on deck. Fast sailing though. There was so much water over the deck that overnight we put the lower washboard in to prevent deck run-off making its way below.

When we were both up at lunchtime we dealt with an issue with one of the sail battens which had became detached from the mast car. The clip that holds it on had broken. Fortunately, we have some spares on board so we were able to drop the sail and replace the clip and then carry on sailing. 

Nicky spent her afternoon watch making a huge pork and vegetable stew to add to the passage food stores in the fridge. The ‘suspiciously green’ left-overs soup that she had made in Kinsale had gone down well for the past couple of lunches but was now finished, so she also made a butternut squash soup and hoped that the new easy to prep food would see us through the forthcoming gale.

At 2200hrs the wind had dropped off to the point that we needed to start the engine to keep making progress sounth – the quiet before the storm? Unfortunately when Nicky started the engine the tachometer wasn't reading properly. After a bit of checking I tightened up the tacho feed connection on the back of the new alternator which seemed to solved that problem. Hopefully that will be all that needs fixing on this passage.

Passage Statistics:
Position at midday 4 Sep: N48 47.8 W010 02.3
Position at midnight 5 Sep (0001hrs): N47 41.1 W010 38.4
Midday to midday distance through water: 161 nautical miles (average 6.7 knots)
Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 149 nautical miles
Midnight to midnight distance through water: 168 nautical miles (average 7 knots)
Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 155 nautical miles
Total miles covered through water: 278 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Porto Santo): 913 nautical miles (1170nm passage)

Kinsale to Porto Santo - Day 2