The Adventures of Captain Ray Penson
Sailing Yacht Truce
This morning I saw the loom of Christmas Island in the distance, off the port bow before sunrise. I was a bit surprised, I didn’t think the place was big enough to light up the horizon. It always feels good to make landfall as expected – even in the GPS age when the average muppet... Continue Reading →
Yesterday afternoon I tacked east and after a few hours the wind started to back around and I could head south again. We are close hauled on the port tack again with the wind from south of east. The motion became quite violent on board as Truce was jumping off waves and crashing into the... Continue Reading →
Today turned out to be a bit of a non-event. The intent was to sail south, pick up the easterly traded and then carry on to Christmas Island. But, events last night and this morning have postponed our breakout from the ITCZ for another day. Firstly, last night turned into an epic of calms blows... Continue Reading →
Another day of slow but steady progress. So far, we have been fortunate with the weather in the ITCZ and have even managed to make ground to the east. We are now positioned to the east and upwind of Christmas Island. Hopefully, that will put us in a good safe upwind position for the final... Continue Reading →
So far, the light and variable airs of the doldrums is suiting us fine. Jessica remarked how nice it was to have some flat sailing and not be constantly banging and crashing to windward. I can’t argue with that sentiment. The temperature here is almost perfect, the daytime temperature in the shade is not excessive... Continue Reading →
No sooner had I written the words ‘ I think the fun will start this evening’ in my log yesterday afternoon than the wind suddenly died. We had entered the ITCZ, the doldrums of old. I had to drop all sail as we were sitting stationary and rolling around with sails slapping back and forth... Continue Reading →
We are now five hundred miles from Kiritimati. A large area of calms is showing up in front of us and appears to be growing by the day. This is the ITCZ, an area of calms, thunderstorms and variable winds we need to cross before Christmas Island. The current weather is overcast with rain, the... Continue Reading →
We Jogged into windward all afternoon yesterday until eight thirty in the evening. This allowed the worst of the weather to pass south of us and gave us a break to catch up on some sleep and have a decent dinner. Truce pinches to windward under triple reefed main and staysail at between two and four knots... Continue Reading →
It started last night around seven. First an unsettling motion and confused sea and then a night of squalls. I was up all night trying to get through without losing to much of the precious ground we had made to the east. We succeeded getting twenty-three miles to the east and also came out with... Continue Reading →
We have found some clear wind and are now making good time to the south. The wind prediction and forecast is for easterly wind, we have been experiencing winds between south east and east south east. This has meant that we continue to sail on a close reach as we try and make some easting. ... Continue Reading →
The Adventures of Captain Ray Penson 