Cape Verdes bound for Argentina - 7 Oct
by Kate Laird

9 27 S
32 37 W

A quiet 24 hours, though we made our longest noon-to-noon run in many weeks - 190 miles, which shows what steady plodding and a lot of current can do! We are able to stick very closely to our bearing to waypoint by fiddling with Jimmy's course every few hours. The wind vane itself is easy to adjust - there are two lines port and starboard and pulling one clicks a ratchet forward one tooth, which is roughly five degrees. It isn't five degrees in practice however, but more fine tuning can be made by giving the gearing on the wheel a notch or two port or starboard to tweak it a bit more. Trimming the main in or out a few inches can make a huge difference. When we are sailing directly down wind, we don't have so much flexibility. It likes sailing at a certain point downwind, and angles near 120 degrees apparent are really tricky, but forward of the beam like this lets us have a lot of control.

It was quite bumpy last night, possibly because we were on the edge of some shallow seamounts. We have a big set of sea mounts to get through shortly. The depth goes down to 20 meters when all around it is about 4000 meters. We will have to avoid the shallowest bits as they will probably be very rough.

Still really really hot and sweaty, especially as all the hatches have to be closed.

You can learn more about the Lairds and Seal at their website www.expeditionsail.com.