on finals for Horta
11 June 2009 | 10nm south of Ilha do Pico
NW 10kt, fair, 1027mb steady
The past 24 hours has been a tale of two very different halves. First 12 hours saw us reaching with 20+ knots, one point abaft the beam (perfect); Viente, reefed down, powering over lively moonlit seas at 8 knots plus. We were looking at a 190nm run under sail - not quite to be - at 0530 we crossed a trough line with an extraordinary rapid windshift, veering 50deg and decreasing to 5kts. 'Nigel' was appalled and quite lost the plot, I don't blame him. One hour later we had