JCTownsley.com

I’ve never had this dilemma before. We’re off the coast of Cape
Alava right now, 20 nm from James Island. Since leaving the straits
we’ve been averaging over 8 knots! The wind is blowing from the
North East at 17 knots, we’ve got a little bit of a current flowing
with us, and we’re flying faster than we are supposed to! The straits
were a little messy, over 3 knots of current flowing out made for
some interesting swells. But it was a good experience for the crew
onboard and they ‘loved’ every minute of it.
Been checking with ‘Dos Suenos,’ the other sailboat we are coming
down the coast with. We’re going to keep at it for now, even though
this speed is going to put us several hours early. When estimating
our route times, we averaged 5.5 to 6 knots for the trip, plus gave
ourselves an extra hour. At this rate we could shoot for the 3:59am
slack and still be several hours early.
So for now we’ll keep it up. Back-up plans are slow way down when we
reach Gray’s Harbor, go for the early slack, or just pull into Gray’s
for a couple hours if need be.
I’ll keep you updated!

Josh