We are zipping right along tonight on a course of 288. I have the dagger boards mostly up allowing us to "side slip" a bit to leeward as our destination is at 275 degrees. We are in near ideal conditions for this boat, a Catana 431. We are beam reaching in 1.5 meter seas. As can be seen in the picture, the apparent wind angle (AWA) is 60 degrees off from directly behind us which is one of the fastest points of sail. Certainly a flat sea state would make us even faster but she's handling this just fine. Also in the picture you can see the apparent wind speed of 11.7 knots. This is what you feel on your face at the helm when you put your nose to the wind. Because the boat's forward motion away from the wind effectively cancels out some of the strength you feel, if the boat were to be stopped for a moment, we would feel the true wind which would be the better part of 20 knots. Quite windy!!
Our velocity made good (VMG) to our waypoint (aka Barbados) is 8.6 knots, while our actual speed through the water when I snapped this picture was 10.5 knots. This happened to spike up as I took the picture. Our average is probably closer to 8 knots.
Hopefully we will maintain this through the night.
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