Day 1 at Sea: Finally!

Hi from Heron,

We’ve had a fantastic first day.  As you can see from the track, we left the docks at 10am, and now at 6pm, we have already sailed 70 nautical miles (log distance), for an average boat speed of 8.8 knots.  That’s crankin!  We are gybing downwind toward our intended entry point to the Gulf Stream  Our ETA at the GS is around 2 am.  We’d hoped to get there at dawn, but we are going too fast.  No problem.  The wind has already eased down from NW23-28 gusting 30, to a pretty steady 22 knots from 305M.  Our average SOG in the last 10 minutes is 8.6 knots.  We are sailing on a deep reach with single reefed main and #3 jib (100%). 

Ray is heating up the shepard’s pie in the oven, which we’ll have for dinner shortly.  Ron is at the wheel, smiling ear-to-ear.  David is off watch, asleep in his bunk. Pete is on standby, cat napping in the cockpit.  I’m getting ready for a radio net to begin, where all the boats check in and hear weather updates.  Freestyle is 4 nm behind us, in constant contact on the AIS and the VHF.  All is well aboard both boats.

We turned the heat on and now the cabin is cozy.  The motion is very comfortable in stern seas that are now in the 4 foot range, down from maybe 8 feet.   We hit 14.5 knots SOG on one wave.  It was fantastic, tracking like a train on rails.

We have made the transition from dock zombies to sailors, and we are very happy.  Talk to you later.