The day of the spi

Finally the day when we could dry the spi up in the air has arrived. But not before a hellish night when Jean-Paul and myself kept hand steering all night at great speed exceeding 0.5 to 2 knots. For the whole night, we had to show almost 22 miles, but we moved forward anyway and did not burn any fuel.
Although it rained all night, Jean-Paul stayed dry in his V-Berth and the temporary repair to the leaking hatch seemed to haved worked. Should be good at least until Horta.
This morning, beautiful weather and enough wind in the right direction to set up the asymetrical spi that pulls us at 5 knots, sometimes more with only 5 knots of apparent wind. Next day should show a decent mileage.
Not today. We covered 90 miles over the ground, 81 through the water (the speedo will probably have to be recalibrated) and we got only 75 miles closer to Horta as we certainly did not sail in a straight line during the night. At noon, we still had 1375 miles to go to get to Horta. I reckon that we can do that in 10 and a half days and that we should be able to have a drink at the famous "Cafe des Sports", also know as "Chez Peter" on May 14th.
At noon, our position was 29:34 N and 54:09 W. As for the water, on average, our consumption remains at 5.3 gallons a day which means at that rate another 33 days of water in the tanks. For fuel, we still have 47 gallons in the tank and 5 in the emergency jerry can. We have promised ourselves that we will not touche the engine until we are at least at the half way point.
We also have in the freezer another 4 meals of fish, one of chicken before we start digging in our 13 canned meals. We won't have to eat the youngest member of the crew to survive.
Tonight, salmon and tagliatella.


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