Day 8, March 14

We lay ahull from 4 PM throughout the night and into the morning. The only saving grace was that we had drifted SE at 1.5 kts and at 8 AM we were at 41S52. We had made good 570 miles in 8 days, giving us a dismal average of 71 miles per day. But this was about to change.

I received word last night that there will be a deep low affecting us on Sunday, and indeed Graham's forecast this morning called for winds of 20-30 kts from the NNW on Sunday. I can expect a reasonable northerly winds to begin at midnight tonight and this should see me through to 43S. That is where I will get slammed by that Low and probably regret that I went that far south. But quite frankly I'd rather have to deal with heavy weather and be forced to heave to occasionally than spend hour after hour drifting like a cork.

At noon we were at 41S56, 25E03 and we had a n-n distance of 46 miles to the SE. This surprised me because we had sailed only 4 out of the 24 hours. I could thank the favorable current.

At 2.15 PM the wind was still at below 7 kts and the sea was calm. Unfortunately the sky had clouded up so that now neither the wind charger nor the solar panel were contributing to the battery power supply. The House bank was at 12.7V so there was no urgency to charge but I figured that it was better to run the engine today while I could get some useful propulsion along with the battery charging rather than in 2 or 3 days when the boat might (hopefully) be moving well under sail power. 65 amps were going into the batteries with the running at only 1500 rpm. And we were making a brisk 4.5 knots due no doubt to the calm sea. We were pointed south and the current was pushing us to the east. There was a 25 degree difference between our heading and COG. This need to periodically run the engine to charge the batteries was one reason why I was conserving my fuel supply. I took the precaution of switching off the AIS transponder and would not use the Pactor motor during the run.

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