32 nautical miles
We had been thinking of an overnight sail starting at 3pm on Friday, but various things conspired to make that impossible, none the least that the forecast temperature meant it might be insufferably hot!
So... we decided to start at 5am on Saturday. This is definitely not a Richard time of day, so I decided to sleep on the boat to be ready for Tim in the morning. He arrived pretty much on the dot of 5am and we were out sailing by 5:14!
The aim was to get as close to Zygi as we could. Normally winds are southerly or westerly and very rarely easterly so since the forecast was for south easterly we tried to make the most of it. The winds were very gentle - we didn't see 10 knots till we were arriving back at the marina, mostly we saw 6-8 knots with some periods of 3-4 knots. That makes it Beaufort 2-3, which is considered a 'gentle breeze'.
The new sails are brilliant! We were seeing very good speeds - 4 knots in 6-7 knots wind. Our highest speed being 5.7 knots. The asymmetric on the magic furl was particularly impressive. I say new... they were new last season, but the improvement in performance never ceases to amaze us.
First thing in the morning was a thick sea mist so we turned on the radar and used that to locate the plethora of fishing boats out. Visibility was down to 30-40 metres, but even very small boats were trackable on the Raymarine radar we use. Partly this was because of the very calm sea, which meant two things: firstly there was little or no 'sea clutter' and secondly King Malu was relatively upright and pitching and rolling very little so the radar gave good targets.
Melvin, a friend from the UK, has sent us some folding chairs, if that's what you can call them for the boat. They are basically padded bottom and back with adjustable webbing straps. Worked brilliantly! Photo to follow.
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