Going nowhere slowly (still)

Jean-Luc van den Heede continues to wallow in the Doldrums

Day 108.
Position at 1300: 2°55'N / 17°W
Wind 4 knots from NE. Calm sea, northerly swell.
Temperatures : day 29°C / night 22°C / sea 27°C
Distance covered in the last 24H : 56 miles.
To the finish 3,481 miles (mistake yesterday!)
Lead over Monnet : 24 days and 5 hours.

Hello

Adrien has just beaten her record for being slow. We'd never experienced such a passage together through the Doldrums. Besides, to make a mile headway in the right direction, you have to keep your eyes open all the time and not shy away from any work, as every puff of wind (whenever you find any of them) is completely unstable in direction. We're going so slowly (an average of less than one knot yesterday afternoon) that the Simrad pilot no longer understands what is going on. Usually, when it puts the tiller in one direction, Adrien obeys...and now, it's discovering that Adrien isn't very willing to comply. It even thinks the boat is rebelling as she stops and does the opposite of what she has been asked to do! So, it calls for help. I don't need to point out that I'm having to spend a lot of time up on deck.

Finally, on top of all that, the edge (the horizontal strip at the bottom) of the 3DL genoa has two 20cm rips in it. They started to run and the two tears just got longer and finally joined up. The edging started to hang down a bit, and get caught up in everything, so I had to cut it off. It's the same problem with my mainsail. I now have a mainsail and a genoa with a fringe, which swings about in the wind. These two sails will complete the trip, but are going to be in a weird condition!

My immediate goal is to get out of here and pick up the NE trade winds...and unfortunately, that won't be tomorrow.

See you tomorrow,

JL VDH

A day with Tanguy's cuddly toy, a sandy-coloured curly-haired bear to frighten off the storks !