We have given “Fred” (our autopilot) a rest from steering the boat over the past day or so while we traverse some rather fickle winds (frequent changes in strength and direction) and some squalls. To be able to handle the squalls easily, we have been sailing with 1 or 2 reefs in the mainsail and often the much smaller staysail in comparison to our monster genoa. This means that during the lulls, steerage can become a problem in the confused sea state. I’m not sure if we are handling it better than Fred would but it has certainly kept us alert during our watches and is honing our skills at balancing the sail rig. You will no doubt have seen our somewhat erratic course over this period. Hopefully this helps to explain why. We expect more of the same sort of conditions tonight but then the winds to die completely so we will probably have a day or two of motoring ahead of us before we can pick up the lovely Easterly Trade winds around 22 degrees North, which is a little lower latitude than usual.
Practicing hand-steering skills
