Thursday 10:30 to Friday 10:30, mid-Atlantic
Day 5 complete. The wind eased a notch — 15 to 25 knots through the day instead of yesterday's relentless 25 to 30 — but the sea didn't get the memo, and we paid for it on the log: just 117 nm, down from 133 the day before.
You'd think less wind means more miles, and some days it does. Not this one. What's left behind a blow is a big primary swell — a solid 6 to 8 feet — with fresh wind waves stacked on top, and the two aren't lined up. The wind waves are running about 40 degrees off the swell axis, which puts more of that chop squarely on the bow. That's the speed killer. A swell on the beam you ride; a sea on the nose you climb. Every wave the bow has to shoulder aside is a little tax on boat speed, and over 24 hours those pennies add up to sixteen lost miles. It's a useful reminder that "less wind" and "easier going" aren't the same thing out here. The number on the anemometer came down, but the boat is still working — and so is the crew.
Two days of rolling starts to add up. The bracing yourself everywhere you go wears thin around the end of the second day, and you can feel it in everyone a little. We lost a few too many card games, the whole hand sliding off the table and scattering across the sole. The boat's fine, the crew's fine, but morale on day two of a roll is a different animal than day one. You just keep your center of gravity low and your expectations lower.
In the galley, today was leftovers and air fryer quick meals — easy, fast, and no ambitious cooking in a moving kitchen. After a couple of days of holding pots steady with one hand, a fridge full of "heat it and eat it" and an air fryer doing the heavy lifting felt like a small luxury. Smart provisioning early in a passage pays off exactly on days like this.
Engineering was more of the same, which is how we like it: check the systems, make water, the evening run-up, and on down the list. Engine room walk, fluids, belts, strainer, bilges — all nominal, all boring, all exactly where they should be. Blah, blah, blah, and I mean that as the highest praise.
We're still hoping the sea catches up to the easing wind and lays down a bit. When the swell and the wind waves finally agree on a direction again, those miles will come back. Until then, we keep ticking them off one shouldered wave at a time.
Follow the dot: trackmywake.com/wake/next-chapter.
— Chris & the crew of Next Chapter