Thursday, April 27, 2017, Day 5, Sailing from Antigua to the Azores

Today is the day one of the two engines died.

But, I digress. Since we last wrote, we have primarily had beautiful sailing weather. The sky has been sunny, and the wind has been good for the most part. We’ve used the Screecher sail several times. It is a wonderful sail, given the right conditions. It enabled us to reach a speed of 8 knots with only 12 knots of wind. Pretty awesome!

Back to the engine. Happily, a catamaran has two engines, or we’d be in a world of hurt. We discovered it didn’t work when Kirill attempted to start it this morning (due to a short span of unusually light wind). Once we realized that salt water had gotten into it, it was clear that it was damaged.

Yulia and Kirill contacted Bob Cook, the professional weather router assisting us, and he suggested we continue with our plan to sail across the Atlantic. So we are.

Still loving this trip! Yulia and Kirill are funny, nice, intelligent, and patient. We feel lucky to be sailing with them!