Kipper Sailing

It's a beautiful day. Brilliant blue skies, sapphire sea and F4 winds. That's the good news. The bad news is that the wind is NNE and guess where Barra is? It's also bloomin' freezing. Since we've been, pretty much, beating to windward for the last 4 days, everything is just slightly damp and even my Musto 3-layer system was failing to keep out the cold earlier. Big thanks to daughter Emma for the seal skin gloves thought. They're great! It's OK down below though, 'cos we've been running the heater. Kipper is also a very dry boat and, although she is al little damp below, this is only due to the water we keep bringing below on our oilskins.

Somehow I managed to get my boots full of water too. It's all very well having the, best that money can buy, Gortex lined, leather Dubarry boots but, if the water goes in over the top, you're screwed. If you change your socks the new ones just get wet. I've been trying to dry them in front of the heater outlet.

Roughly 25 miles to the finish. We've been heading NNW for the last couple of hours, anticipating that the wind will back later and have just tacked onto port. The GPS tell us that our VMG to the finish is 4.8kts, so that'd give a finish time of around 1800. If the wind does back, we might be there a little sooner, except that it's possible that the wind will drop when it backs. So the best we can hope is to be in before dark, which is around 2300 in these parts.