Time: 6:25 local
Lat: 33 20
Log: 145 02
Distance from Hawaii: 994
Distance to Golden Gate: 1130
24 hour distance made good: 129.8 nautical miles
A delightful and comfortable day sailing. Someone could, if they wanted, complain about it being too cold, or not sunny enough, or the wind being a bit shifty sometimes, but with a nice comfortable beam reach in 15 to 20 knots, you won’t hear anybody on this boat whining! Especially since we ended up another 130 miles closer to San Francisco.
That last nasty low pressure system has now run well ahead of us, and the high that we were worried about stealing our winds is dissipating behind us. We have another day or so before the front edge of the next low arrives. It will pick our winds up again, but this time they will be from the west, making a much easier downwind run straight towards the Golden Gate.
Before we left, I told everyone who asked that a 21 day crossing would be very fast in this boat, and 28 would be very slow. It is looking like we will be very close to the fast time. If we can keep our recent pace up, we’ll be making landfall on the 29th.
Just because “most people” do not use their mizzen, does not mean that they aren’t very useful. I have found that a mizzen adds little to boat speed when hard on the wind, but it REALLY helps with the balance of the boat. I have had my boat running without autopilot for literally days at a time without touching the wheel. If I want to change course a few degrees relative to the wind, I just tweak the mizzen sheet a few inches. Off the wind then the sail area offers good drive, and STILL helps enormously with balance. We were sailing hands off, no autopilot on a beam reach in variable winds and significant seas. What sloop can do that???
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Glad to hear that the winds are now more in your favor. Your problems with the main, leads me to ask how often you use your mizzen. It appears to come in handy when other things fail like the prop. A friend is buying a cruising boat and I mentioned your purchase of the Amel and the benefits of a ketch. His response was that most people never use their mizzen.
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