Hola Westward Fans!
Well, after a very slow start with not enough wind to get this baby going above around 4 or 5 knots for a day, we are now off Cedros Island off of Baja. Mid-day yesterday, the wind started to improve. About mid-afternoon, we had our lightest-air spinnaker up. We have four total spinnakers on board (spinnakers are downwind sails that are often colorful and pretty big) for the different wind conditions. By about 5 am, we had put up and taken down all of them, except for the one meant for heaviest wind, which is what we have up now. How did that happen?
Watch 1 (the non-bearded watch of Willie, Alli and Graham) put up sail #1, and by the end of the watch, replaced it with sail #2 (with the help of the bearded watch of Sam, Zack and Ric). In the middle of their watch, the beards woke up the non-beards to take down sail #2 and put up sail #3 because the wind had increased so much. In the middle of the next non-beard watch, the sail that was up got a small tear and to be on the safe side, the bearded watch was woken up again to change to sail #4. Needless to say, it was a night of togetherness and...skill building.
We've been cruising along with the sail we've got up at about 9 knots. And, we've set some personal records. Willie currently holds the max speed record with 18.4. Everyone else has hit at least the high 16's. It's been fun, but tiring.
The bearded watch is currently on deck and hopefully they can keep us moving for the next four hours. The non-beards will come on deck at around 11. Here's to hoping we maintain this speed but also get more sleep than last night!
Love to you all,
Team Westward
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