Sat 3.50pm PST Finished on deck - Preventer lines on boom shortened and tensioned with bungie loops to hold close to the boom - hopefully, they won't be able to cause a problem there any longer.
Port side lazyjack - I decided to prevent the line from high on the mast from getting caught up in the rigging, as the starboard one did yesterday, should a line break. I've attached a separate line, with a convenient small shackle on its end, to that line's end eye so if any one of the lower lines breaks, there won't be any problem retrieving that line up the mast - it's tied down so it can't 'escape'! The starboard line end has ended up at the small block high up on the mast - no way to retrieve it without a climb up the mast. But at least it's not tangled up with other rigging lines or shrouds....
The sun has come out - there's a big patch of blue sky showing. It's actually feeling warm - lovely!
5.30pm By the time I'd finished my work on deck, we were drifting almost due E while still hove-to in NNW wind of 16-18kt. Definitely time to get underway... Now we're making 6 kt SE in WNW-NW wind - it's good to be sailing again although the 3m seas are coming onto our beam so we're really rolling about a lot.
According to my weather info, sailing will be good until Wednesday-Friday when we could find ourselves in the light-zero winds of a High pressure system again..... But that forecast is for several days away and things could change totally by then.
Sunday 5:30am Nice to chat briefly to friends on 7163kHz around dawn - propagation good then. Then up on deck to gybe onto starboard tack - wind now from W, still around 18kt, gusting 20kt. Making 6.5kt just on a broad reach, nearly on a beam reach. New length preventer lines working OK - centred main, as usual, to deal with preventers as we gybed around - bungies doing a good job!
Grey sky, damp and murky - no sign of sun yet but very light now. Seas are from W and slightly down on last night - under 3m maybe - but it's still very rolly. Getting back to my bunk for a bit more sleep.
11am Wind died totally one hour ago - sky a lot brighter with broken light overcast and blue streaks on horizon - seeing 15A coming in from PV panels when sun shines between cloud! Not enough apparent wind to turn generator blades.
Creeping along now in under 10kt wind from 'abaft the beam'. Seas have lain down a lot - feels a lot gentler. Time for a late coffee - and think about what jobs I can get done while it's relatively calm. Will be looking again at the rod-kicker base fitting on mast....
1900 GMT (=1100PST) - end of Day 53. We made 100 n.ml.(DMG) measured in a straight line between the two points, over the 24 hr period since yesterday's 1900 GMT position.
Position & weather report posted to Winlink.org and Shiptrak.org (using my US callsign of kc2iov) not long after 1900 GMT:
TIME: 2018/11/25 19:00GMT LATITUDE: 35-48.87S LONGITUDE: 113-33.48W COURSE: 147T SPEED: 3.5kt
WIND_SPEED: 9kt WIND_DIR: WNW SWELL_DIR: WNW SWELL_HT: 2.0m CLOUDS: 95%
BARO: 1018.2hPa TREND: 0 AIR_TEMP: 21.0C SEA_TEMP: 18.0C
COMMENT: Wind died 1hr ago..! 100 ml DMG Sunny, bright broken cloud layer