Making choices

1 October 2024

Making choices

We sailed very nicely for several days. Mainly with a faint breeze from the east-south-east that slowly increased and turned to the south-east. This left us, as expected, some way west of the straight line to the goal. Slowly but surely, we sailed into a high-pressure area, gradually losing wind.  Eventually, our speed became too low and the course too westerly. So we lowered the sails and started the engine. Always a shame, but it’s part of the job.

Meanwhile, we are almost at the ‘bottom’ of this high-pressure area and are expected to sail out of here tomorrow morning. But a new high-pressure area will immediately take its place, with a very narrow trough (a trench of low pressure) in between. It all doesn’t look very exciting on the weather reports. But since we broke two booms on the previous round-the-world trip, a decade ago, in about the same situation, so we are not taking any chances and will let this come over us without a rig. This is expected to be around breakfast time. After that, the sails can be raised again and we hope to have a good stretch of sailing. Again, not directly to our destination, as we will again be at the ‘top’ of a high-pressure area, so the wind will be south-east again. If we are swallowed up by this high pressure area and the wind drops, we will have to motor a bit more to reach New Zealand. Hopefully, we will be able to sail the last bit.