Position 17 28.40N 053 35.12W

Day 13 on the 9th December 2011

From 12.00 UTC on the 8th, to Noon on the 9th December, distance travelled Noon to noon run was 156 miles (log 10352)

Distance to go to just south of the island is 470 miles.

24 hour sailing report

The wind speed stayed at around 12 to 14 knots until about 17.00 on the 8th. From about 14.00 we started to get more and more rain squalls appearing to the South of us.

Our luck at missing these squalls finally failed, and we had about six of them pass over us in the course of 3 hours.

Luckily no great change of wind direction other than the wind went from the beam to almost on the nose, so we had to bear away to keep the sails filled and the boat sailing. The wind speed also increased from 12 to 25 knots in a matter of minutes once the squall was on us. After it had passed we went back to the original conditions.

The rain during the squalls was incredibly heavy, and had the effect due to its intensity of flattening the sea for a short period until it passed.

As the last squall passed, the wind dropped to only 2 to 4 knots and changed direction to the West. This is the direction we are sailing to. We had no option but to turn the engine on and start motor sailing towards Antigua.

We are keeping the engine rpm low so as to us as little fuel as possible, as it looks from the latest weather forecast that we will have these conditions i.e. no wind until Sunday

This has made the sailing /motoring slow again, as can be seen in the noon to noon distance.

Not much wild life again day today, just flying fish and a few sea birds.

We are now sailing in company with three other boats, Moin a German boat about 40 feet long, and Marite 111 also 40 feet and Karacool the 53 foot CAT who is also one of our group boats.

We all left within about an hour of each other. Karacool is now 185 miles ahead of us in Oyster Moon. Moin is about 109 miles behind with Marita 111 about 90 miles behind us.

More news on the next noon report