Logs from Lille Ø

After a night well slept, we hoisted anchor at sunrise.

In the darkness we crossed over the Tonga Trench, the second deepest trench in the world!

Overnight the wave train settled to the new wind direction, and the cloudy conditions dissipated.

As expected, in the night the wind had veered to NW and was supposed to turn to southerly winds through west over the day.

Good sailing conditions prevailed until the morning, but then we were back to low winds and slatting sails.

The night started quite rough, with a series of 32kn gusts rolling over the boat.

Having gotten through the calms, we were rewarded with almost 24h of the best kind of ocean sailing: wind 13-15kn on the stern quarter, nice waves, and a beautiful sunny blue sea.

In the darkening evening Suski took a look at the bilge.

Wind started reducing over night, making for a bit of struggle with slatting sails and windvane that didn’t quite get enough input from the apparent wind.

In the morning it was time to undo the spiderweb of anchors, land lines and springs between the boats.

Before the sun set, we changed to starboard tack.

The wind has eased throughout the day and we have been giving us more sail area bit by bit.

Wind did indeed come back.

The wind quieted down for the night, meaning that we had to spend the dark hours with occasionally slatting sails and struggling windvane.