Tuesday 19 January - USVI to Turks & Caiaos

Tuesday 19 January - USVI to Turks & Caicos
A drifter is a large, lightweight sail used when there is not much wind. Being light weight it does not flog, and so gives a steady pull when a normal genoa flogs and jerks the boat. We have a drifter, but it hanked onto and went up a cable in front of the genoa, was a big deal to get up, and getting it down sometimes it would go in the water. It had to be gathered up on the foredeck in the wind . . .a big deal. A few years ago Normandie gave me a gizmo that winds up the drifter the same way the genoa is wound up, or furled. I have spent many hours on the Pamlico trying to match our existing drifter to the furling gizmo. Much trial and error.
I got everything ready this morning and left Charlotte Amalie about 09:00, in intermittent warm showers and good wind; I sailed at 5 knots for three hours as the showers passed by. The showers went away, and the wind did too. I slowly drifted down to about 1.7 knots, sails flogging. It took about two hours to get out the drifter (with the furling gizmo) get it hooked up, remember how everything worked, and magic happened. We have been happily sailing along about 3.5 knots all the rest of the day, very comfortably. So Normandie, the investment is paying off. We are drifting along, right now at 3.3. Thank you.
It is about 400 miles USVI to Turks & Caicos. Average sailing that is four days. The thing about this trip is that the engine is sick. I want to use it absolutely the minimum amount. I need it to get into and out of anchorages. Hopefully it will last all the way back to the mainland, where I will get the injector pump rebuilt, and be back to normal again. But this is a sailing trip, without motoring through the calms. Right now, with the drifter I am sailing through the calm. Slow, but we are sailing. The imperative is that sometime during the day Saturday the wind is forecasted to turn and come from the north, blowing me back to USVI. If at all possible I need to get to TCI by Saturday. Even though I am only going 3.3 knots, every mile makes it more likely I will make it in time.
Right now, 20:00, I am about ten miles off Puerto Rico, San Juan lighting up the horizon. No targets on the AIS or the radar. I hope for a drifty, uneventful night.
Reef Early
Bill Doar
s/v Advent II