L'Eau Commotion Westabout

Day 91 7pm Friday 6th September 2019 ( UTC-1 )
We should cross the Equator either late tonight or tomorrow Saturday 7th September 2019 but this does not mean we can turn South for The Horn. To complete a circumnavigation we must sail a minimum of 21,600 nautical miles and cross all meridians of longitude at least once and this distance is to be achieved by actually rounding only one physical point, not a GPS position. The point I have nominated is the island of Hierro which is situated in the North East Trades so a certain amount of windward work is inevitable though the going is usually benign. To get to the North East Trades means passing through the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, which in simpler times was called the Doldrums. This has its frustrations of calms and light and variable winds interlaced with the occasional squall which can vary in intensity from fierce to frightening. The last time through here in L'Eau Commotion took 38 days Equator to Equator and Katherine Ann to round Faial in the Azores the equivalent of 43 days.
We have been making around four knots in very light winds from dead astern with a full main and poled out jib. As an experiment for a short time today I tried a broad reach with main and jib thirty degrees off course but to my surprise the speed over ground was actually less and of course that would have entailed extra distance as well.