27 August - A New Record!

0600 position 24-15S 155-06W. Day's run 173 miles

Yesterday morning we thought we'd be jib reaching, but the new 6AM grib
files revealed a change in the forecast to winds from further astern than
previously predicted. The forecasted weather the rest of the way in to
Raivavae also keeps improving. I can't believe it.

We ended up sailing with the jib poled out for thirty two hours. The wind
had been very shifty, and if it came forward too much the poled out jib
would back, which is a bad thing. If the wind came aft too much, we would
jybe, which is also a bad thing. It is a lot harder to sail wing and wing
than any other setup and requires someone next to the autopilot at all
times to make sure bad things don't happen. Sailing wing and wing is very
fast though, and it allows us to sail dead down wind, if that is where we
are trying to go. The wind finally backed far enough at 1PM today so we
weren't pointed where we wanted to go anymore, and down came the pole.

After the pole came down the wind slowly backed from the west to the
southwest and eventually lightened until this morning found us with the
apparent wind on the beam, under full jib and double reefed mainsail,
reaching directly toward Raivavae. It also looked like we had a favorable
current of about one knot.

These great sailing conditions helped produce a record day's run for the
Mighty Moku pe'a of 173 miles! That's a 7.2 knot average speed. Not bad
for a thirty five foot cruising boat with the autopilot steering. Our
previous best day's run was 170 miles set when Matt and I sailed from Bora
Bora to Hawaii in 2011.