May 27, 2006-Passage Report-On the Way to Singapore

Slow Passage

WINGS is slowly beating to the SW in a light breeze, on choppy seas, and under grey skies, going down the west coast of Borneo, bound for Singapore. Its 07:00 A.M. and I'm on watch while Judy gets what she usually says is her best sleep of the day. All I know is that she had a tough night and she is really sawing logs right now. We're making about three knots with six knots of wind in waves left over from some squall somewhere. It's slow going.

This is not going to be an easy or fast passage. The winds have been light and contrary, often non-existent. We've motored about 20 hours out of three days so far, and much of the sailing time has been struggling to find a point of sail which will take us towards Singapore instead of away from it. But we have been averaging 100 miles a day, which is OK.

This afternoon we hope to get to the halfway point, which makes it look like a seven day passage, or more. The weather forecasts are for even less wind. We might be able to motor all the way from here, if we had to, we've got the fuel, but we're nursing a leaking transmission, and we want to baby it rather than push it to the limit, plus, we like sailing more than motoring, so we're sailing when we can.

Anyhow, some passages are like this. We're safe, well fed, have plenty of water and food. And we've had some periods of glorious sailing; so it's not been all bad. We've just got to hang in there and get across the South China Sea one more time.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, On Passage

03 deg 05.8 lat, 110 deg 45.2 lon

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