6 February – day 5
Another tedious night of light airs and sloppy residual swell. We try to sail with full main well-braced forward, and poled out yankee. The fully battened main thwacks as we roll and 3-4 knot boatspeed is the meagre reward. So we drop the sails and motor for a while, until one or other of us imagines a return of breeze and we haul everything up again. We certainly don’t have enough fuel to motor every night for the next fortnight.
It has been like this every night and is rather wearing. At least the breeze comes in reliably at around 7 am and we get moving again. Today we have twin poled out headsails and no main and are sitting on 6.6 knots.
With 1,620 miles to go it is too early for us to start peering ahead for Trinidad’s coastline, although I am occasionally tempted. Ian is phlegmatic, relaxed, just eats and sleeps.
