TWS - it's blowing 14 to 18 knots
TWD - out of the west north west and it keeps wanting to go further north
Sea state - small 1 to 2 foot rollers
Dawn this morning feels like a year ago. It broke with a rain shower towards the southern end of Long Island after a long night of running under the kite. And like most rain formations, it spelt trouble washing away all of the breeze.
With 3 to 5 knots, the morning and early afternoon was a painful exercise of trying to keep the wheels turning, even if it was ever so slowly. WHOOSH SLAP! the sails would voice as each small wave rolled the boat and caused the sails to empty and fill. WHOOSH SLAP! over and over.
It's more work than it feels right for such low loads, but every inch in light air has a magnifying effect and Dragon does surprisingly well for a fat bottom gal. The wider your transoms, the more sticky you get when things go soft and squishy.
We avoided stopping and gained our redemption in the act, finally passing Lee Overlay, Katara and Renegade.
The wind filled in from the west after lunch and we got past North East Cay in the late afternoon. It's a few rocks that come up from the sea bed 3000 feet down on either side, but they sit right in the middle of the route and claimed a boat in a prior edition the race. It would be a bad place to get in trouble, with no place to go to for help for hundreds of miles.
Now we are plowing through the gloaming, with threatening cloud lines on every side. We head towards an imaginary point 13 miles east of Cuba, put there to keep us from going into Cuban territorial waters. Once we pass that in the early morning hours we can finally turn west and start to point at the finish. That last 236 miles looks tricky too, but more to come on that.
Off to catch a kip in the pipe rack.