November 2015
Thoughts about this…
The amount of time we ran the engine came as a surprise to me. It didn’t feel like we motored that much. Actually, we motored for a full day or more at the beginning of the trip in very light winds. When the wind came up strong and headed us, we continued to motor through the boisterous conditions because we were able to point higher into the wind and it also made it more comfortable as we could use less sail (with a more slack trim) to make way. We motored another day at the end of the passage when the wind died.
We didn’t motor much to charge. Our new solar panel is amazing! We did motor a couple of times during the night when the wind dropped below ten knots. We wanted the speed and the electricity didn’t hurt either.
There were a couple of times during the light wind times mentioned above when we’d have been very happy sailing in light winds and making 3.5 to 4 knots but as usual, we were racing a front in to New Zealand. That always seems to be the case!
The other thing that surprised me was our fuel consumption. I’ve seen it just above a half a gallon an hour but never below. I guess the wind was just helpful enough that we could run the engine slower than usual. It doesn’t take much wind-assist to really up the mileage.
-Rich
Our track (crooked line) versus the rhumb line, displayed on openCPN on my android phone.
