Hello Friends-
We are on Day 6 of Leg 7 of the Globe 40 RTW race headed from Recife, Brazil to the Caribbean Island of Grenada. I am remiss in not writing earlier but I confess it is so hot down below that I have not been able to force myself to sit at the computer and type! I will confess that I don't do well in the heat- my body temp tends to run a little hot, which is great for skiing in New England in the winter but not so great for sailing past the Equator, which we recently did! So I seek shade like a lizard from the intense sunlight and look forward to the night when the sun goes down. We have been sailing mainly downwind this leg which is a welcome change from previous legs and has allowed us to use our full downwind sail inventory of big A2 spinnaker, slightly smaller A3 masthead gennaker and smaller A5 fractional all-purpose sail. The A5 is the sail we blew up beyond repair last Leg but quickly had a new one made and I picked it up when I went home over Christmas and brought it back to Ushuia.
We are power-reaching at the moment in wind speed of 18-21k, boatspeed of 10-12k and a True Wind Angle of about 100', which means it is very fast but also very wet as we crash through the waves and spray is thrown back over us in the cockpit. Down below, it is a bumpy ride and luckily we have two fans pointed at the bunk so sleeping is not too bad, even in the heat. Roger and I are on our usual "3 hours on, 3 hours off" watch routine, with a fair bit of overlap to work together on sail changes. We both download Grib weather files and do the routing, where we have elected a more northern path than our 3 competitors which is not looking great at the current moment but we are hoping might pay dividends down the road with a better sailing angle as we approach Grenada.
The heat has curbed my appetite but Roger is his usual voracious self! Lots of salami and cheese on crackers, maybe some peanut butter and of course, the freeze dried dinners. It ain't too glam, but we are surviving. We are both looking forward to the Grenada stop as our families will be visiting and we are also looking forward to concluding the Globe 40 after the 8th Leg from Grenada to Lorient, France. We should get there in mid-March, which will be very chilly in the Bay of Biscay (same temps as New England in March). A study in extremes.
So we look forward to finishing in about 4 days- targeting Wednesday, Feb. 15- as we are now less than 1,000 miles out with strong winds on the beam forecast, so we should be able to do 250 miles a day with a 10k average boatspeed.
Go GS2!
Cheers,
Joe + Roger
