Willie's Adventures Sailing and Fishing

It is a long way across here. We currently have been at sea 15 days and have just under 1000 miles left to run. That is going to take around 8 more days. I am actually really enjoying the sailing, especially my own watches. We want to stay as far north as possible but the wind is forcing us south. This can add two days to the time. On my watch today, I managed to alter course and head northwest much to everyone’s surprise. I took over from the skipper who could only make southwest. I don’t think he understood when I explained how it was done. My flying background seems to help a lot analysing what is happening to the sails and whether they are working efficiently or not. This is a bit of an on-going issue for me. I like to sail the boat efficiently and a lot of the time, in my opinion, this is just not happening. Sometimes it is just that people seem unaware of how to trim the sails and balance the boat. Sometimes it is a sort of ‘policy’ issue. An example of such a case is to do with using the poles. In light winds you need these to help the boat sail. Several times we have sailed very well with the poles out all day to be told to change the sail plan and put the poles away at night. The weather is forecast as good, we will go slower on a worse course. If squalls are the issue we can see them approaching on the radar from 10 miles away. In the end , it is not my toybox, so we slow down and meander off . In respect of my relationship with Herman, peace has sort of broken out but only on condition that we don’t talk about the war.