Kinsale to Porto Santo Madeira Archipelago - Day 4

We had a slow night. The evening GRIB files confirmed that the system had slowed and that the gale force winds were unlikely to hit until Saturday morning, which was, indeed, the case.

As night became morning and the wind and seas built, Blue Velvet picked up speed, to about 4 knots, and set a better angle to the rising waves. By 0900hrs the wind was southerly 30kts gusting 40. Blue Velvet was quite happy, trugging on over, and occasionally through, the confused seas and life on board was remarkably comfortable.

Shortly before lunch, the wind reached its peak of 36kts gusting to 43, staying at that level until about 1630hrs when it suddenly dropped and started to veer, a little earlier than forecast but otherwise as expected. Nicky was in the bunk but got up as soon as I switch on the engine with the wind indicator now showing just 19kts. Together we spent an hour crawling around on deck lowered the storm sails and bundled them into their bags, dumping them into the forward heads until we reach Porto Santo and can wash, dry and fold them properly. Then we hoisted a double reefed main and the staysail, switched off the engine, and set off southwards at the galumph over an even more confused sea. I don’t think either of us got much sleep off watch. Finally at 7pm we got the big wind shift we wanted, and were expecting, so we were able to head south on track. We should be good for a nice beam reach for the next couple of days and pointing towards Porto Santo too.

Passage Statistics
Position at midnight 7 Sep (0001hrs): N46 00.73 W012 50.27
Midday to midday distance through water: 47.4 nautical miles (average 1.9 knots)
Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 21.9 nautical miles
Midnight to midnight distance through water: 56.1 nautical miles (average 2.3 knots)
Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 39.1 nautical miles
Total miles covered through water: 440.7 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Porto Santo): 793 nautical miles (1170nm passage)

Kinsale to Porto Santo - Day 4