[password] pilot25041
[position] 16 50.4s. 151 44.4w
[status] Thursday 16th August late morning ........ after a couple hours of motoring from Papeete across to Moorea, there was sufficient wind to sail under the gennaker, so engines off and although not going at a great speed we were progressing sedately to our target. Some time later we could see bad weather over Moorea and also further to our north, with a rain squall looking imminent we dropped the gennaker just as the first drops of rain started falling, back to genoa and main, however, this only lasted a short time before the stbd engine was back on to help us progress as the wind disappeared. Throughout the afternoon the genoa was unfurled and furled several times as the windex was going around in circles ...... then an hour after our roast chicken dinner, it's back to meagre rations now we're on passage again! The wind filled in sufficiently to allow us stop the engine and sail properly, although we were 20-25 degrees off our best course to have a quiet boat and get s
ome sleep. Through the dark hours we gybed a couple of times to keep a 130-150AWA with the 9-14kts breeze and as dawn broke we were about 15nm from the bottom SW corner of Raiatea doing between 5-6kts SOG.
The cloud cover was 100%, with several heavy rain squalls showing from ahead of us in the SW all the way through the north sector to our NE, with Huahine & Raiatea regularly disappearing behind large black rain squalls. Just after 8.30am, the wind died, so we're back under stbd engine propulsion again pottering along at 5kts.
Currently we're making slow but steady progress, it was good that we had a steady breeze overnight so that Dirk & Ron could get used to both sailing in the dark and the 3hr watch system. The gribs for the next few days show variable winds up to 15kts, hopefully some of it will be in the right direction to assist our progress!
Position. 11.30 FP Time. 692nm to go 130nm 24hrs run
[speed] 4.6kts
[heading] 276M
[weather] 2knts Variable, 0.5m swell from the E, 100% cloud cover.
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