May 6th

Trip metre 5474 nm

Distance to Horta 1327 nm

Distance in 24 hrs 88 nm

DMG  75 nm

1300 UTC

Nice sailing yesterday in 5 to 10 knot breeze, between E and SE.  Speed from 2 to 4 knots all day and night.  Still beating and can sometimes head straight towards Horta.  Trying to see if can rendezvous with "Bad Company" a 53m expedition motor yacht, which is en route from Bermuda to Mindelo, Cabo Verde, to spend some time sport fishing alongside my buddies there.  The captain, Graeme, is a good friend who lives in Horta when not at sea.

The wind picked up again this morning and Nuts started pounding pretty hard with the speed close to 5 knots, so I put in a reef to slow down a bit. Heading straight to Horta at the moment with sheets cracked off a bit.

 May 5th Day 16

Trip metre 5386

Distance to Horta 1402

Ditance in 24 hrs 46nm

DMG 25nm

1300 UTC

Extremely slow sailing yesterday and last night.  Only excitement was the trigger fish eating my barnacles.   We did many 360 degree turns and in the end I lashed the tiller and went to sleep.  It was so calm even the sails were not flopping from side to side.  As has happened quite often the wind picked up at sunrise and we are moving again.  Speed between 2.5 and 4 knots.  Still beating, and pounding again in the building chop.

 Ian has a friend. 

 Sian's comment:  in 14 days Ian has sailed 1045 miles but made good only 720 towards Horta.  That is roughly one third of the total distance.  He hoped the trip home would take about 30 days, but it is going to be quite a lot longer than that.  Yesterday he took stock of the cans of food he has on board.

He also has quite a lot of dehydrated meals ( probably about 30 but he is taking stock today) which are balanced meat/veg mixtures (|I hope, seeing I created them) and multi vitamin tablets.  And plenty of water.  

 May 4th, Day 15

Trip metre 5340

Distance to Horta 1427

Distance sailed in 24 hrs 54

DMG 32

Yesterday and last night was more of the same, very light and variable direction wind.  Always beating. In the early hours of the morning a 15m French yacht sailed past at 4 knots versus my 2 knots.  At sunrise the wind picked up from the NE (so right where Horta is) but slowly eased off again until there was absolutely nothing, just rolling back and forth in the swell, going nowhere, except backwards in the current.  Windy forecasts some light wind later today and maybe a bit better tomorrow.  But Windy keeps changing its mind.  I ate 2 eggs last night and released some cracked ones into the sea.  They had been cracked for some time judging by the mess in the carton.  Now only 4 eggs left.  Sea very lumpy now and the motion is throwing what little wind there is out of the sails.

 May 3 Day 14

Trip metre 5286

Distance to Horta 1459

Distance in 24 hrs 60 nm

DMG 45 nm

0900 UTC

Slow sailing with periods of no wind.  When there is a little breeze it is always from a different direction.  Tacked a few times but not making progress.  A bit frustrating, and this should continue for a few more days according to weather forecasts.  Hopefully there will be a bit more wind after that, even though I will then be beating.

This is my course and it is even before rum o clock!!

 May 2nd

Trip metre 5336

Distance to Horta 1504

Distance in 24 hrs 81

Distance made good 69

1300UTC

Calm night with very little wind.  Wind slowly coming more from the North, more forward of the beam.  Nice sunrise but no extra wind strength.  Clear skies again so the solar panels are very happy.  No issues with power and I only put the big 110w panel out, if needed, to top up the 2 x 50a batteries.  Starlink is the biggest consumer of power - about 3 amps.  Rationing my data usage so the 50 Gb I pay for will last a month.  YouTube chews data, and it's easy to get distracted.  Funny to be shopping on Amazon from the middle of the Atlantic!  I saw my AIS position marked on Marine Traffic, a "satellite position", no name of the boat, but it matched my actual position exactly.   Comforting to know that my AIS is transmitting.