Passage Panama to French Polynesia, day 19: Good Friday, 7-April
The squalls that started last evening disappeared about midday, but the wind and waves persisted. Wind ESE 18-23kts and 3m short & steep waves from SE. We’d spent the morning broad reaching (AWA 115p) to get more south, away from the squall clouds that seem to lie in a band above 8deg south latitude. This gave us beam-on seas which quickly threw poor Oana into sicky mode as each wave, every 5-7secs, would roll us hard over to starboard. And I mean roll … to the point the boom-end almost dipped itself in the water! The autohelm was earning its pay cheque today.
Later in the afternoon we turned right again, more downwind, poled out the genoa and now sailing more downwind and with the swell, the motion instantly improved, as did Oana.
So it has been rolly but very fast sailing these last 24hrs, managing a healthy 205nm on SOG. It’s a rare day that we break the 200nm barrier.
