In the last 24 hours – 132 miles covered
After two nights in Mindelo, we’re refreshed, fed and watered (with pizza, beer and hamburgers) and ready for Day 8 at sea. We arranged a departure time with J-Squared and another catamaran called Lento, and after re-fuelling we all took to the water around 1pm for the next leg.
No surprises for guessing but our sailaway songs were all playing loudly on the boat’s sound system as we departed Mindelo.
As we’re flying our Gennaker and Spinnaker to Barbados, we’ll be taking a slightly different path to J-Squared and Lento who are both flying Parasailors (Kites) so we don’t expect our paths to cross as much as before. Still we’re in VHF contact for the time being and the camaraderie continued between the boats well into the evening.
The pre-midnight shift saw Pete and Nev have an exciting time with another technical hitch on the personal man overboard alarms, which woke the entire boat up. This was quickly followed by a loud bang, and the sail sagging as the third reef broke due to chaffing. Skipper was quickly up and so able to make a fix by tying the two ends together but we’ll need to change the reefing line once it gets light.
A choppy and noisy night in a rough sea, but the Gennaker flew all night long and we’re making good headway.