password] Tsar12
[position]15 72.72S 155 25.18W
[weather]fine in intervals with some cloud cover and a few rain cells coming through wind E 10-20 knots
[status] after settling into a slightly bumpy sail at 60 AWA the wind slowly picked up towards dusk so we threw a reef in for the wind to average only 10-14 during the night but we still managed 7-8 knots and as the evening went on it slowly backed from S to SE , which lead to a easy first night out for the new team.
This morning dawned fine and we threw the reef out and put up the gennaker at 6 am ! Seas still confused and beam on to start but as the morning went on and the wind backed to east the swells slowly came around to but not to the point they were easy surfing.. the wind got up to 20 knots and we were cruising at 9-10 touching 13 but having to sail as deep as we could (130j to try and keep the gennaker setting with the sea state which was throwing us around a little. Just before lunch a nasty looking rain cell approached and as the wind hit 22 knots we doused the gennaker then reset after it passed - however in its remnants the wind dropped to 14 knots so our first 24 hour run which was shaping to be around 225 despite being over reefed during the night will be less plus our hopes of getting into Suwarrow by sunset on thurs look gone so another night at sea but the forecast is at least saying it will be all downwind ( with some gybes ).
After that rain cell passed the sun is shining and it is generally pleasant trade wind sailing- just could do with another 5 knots of wind .
Today no lures out as we have the gennaker up - after yesterday?s effort - that reel is down to half a spool of line now so some running repairs are needed.
Will be fun to get to Suwarrow again after originally spending some time there with My brothers friend Alan on Cool Change many moons ago .
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