Location 40° 55S, 96° 41W
Saturday 11.03.2007

At noon on November 3rd the Schooner Maggie B was at 40° 55S, 96° 41W. We are still making good time: 7.0 knots on a heading of 075 degrees magnetic, holding only a little north of the Great Circle route as we sharpen up to follow the wind as it backs around to the West.

We have come 3885 NM from Rangiroa and have 1043 to go to Puerto Montt. We were disappointed that with the lightening, backing winds, we were only able to go 166 NM in the last 24 hours, so our five day run was 990 NM. So close to the darling 1000!

We are expecting the winds to fall off further and back around to the SW, and do at least one full 360 in the next 36 hours. A little high is coming through and we expect tomorrow to be motorsailing, washing and cleaning. Following the high should be a nice breeze from the SSW, starting at 25-30 and then tapering off to a fine 15-20 knot southerly to blow us all the way in.

As mentioned previously, we have gone through our starboard, smaller diesel fuel tank and are on the port, larger one. We estimate that we have 150 gallons left, which is about 150 hours steaming at efficiency cruise, which gives us about 6 knots in a calm. Thus we have about 800-900 NM steaming range if the wind fails us. We also carry 10 gallons (60 NM) in jerry cans. We thing that we will buy and fill additional jerry cans in Puerto Montt, as fuel between Puerto Montt and the Horn is chancy at best, and only available from a filling station ashore, if available. The Maggie B may end up looking a bit like a pack horse, but that beats running out.

I smell Hannah’s tea biscuits coming out of the oven…

All is well.