We continued to sail through the night. It was a very pleasant night with a full moon and light winds, the ship sailing along easily under full sail. Nights like this also give us time to practice our sail handling with the light sails that have been so little used on this passage thus far. As the sun rose in the morning however the wind went calm, a high pressure system has developed over the Bay of Biscay and are right in the middle of it.
While most of us would be content to continue to sail along slowly in these pleasant conditions, when things change here in Biscay they can change quickly and not for the better. As such, not wanting to wait around for foul winds, we decided around 0700 this morning to put the big 7 cylinder Burmeister & Wain Alpha diesel engine to work and are now making good headway toward La Rochelle.
SHIP’S WORK: Send up fish tackle, Unbend Mizzen Topmast Staysail for repairs, continue overhaul of Outer Jib Sheet pennants, spot paint about the superstructure, continue on galley house dutchman, oil jibboom, sailmakers continue on Flying Jib tabling.
FROM: Lunenburg, NS, Canada
TOWARDS: La Rochelle, France
TIME ZONE: ZD 0, GMT, UTC, Zulu, etc.
NOON POSITION: 46°05.5’N / 011°54.8’W
DAYS RUN: 86nm
PASSAGE LOG: 2537nm
DISTANCE REMAINING: 450nm
COURSE AND SPEED: E, 7kts
WIND: S, Force 2
WEATHER: Sunny, air temp: 18°C, water temp: 13°C
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: 4 – 6 ft, S’rly
SAILS SET: Inner Jib, Main T’gallant Staysail, Fore & Main Topmast and Mizzen Staysails