Sailing conditions on a slow but pleasant downwind passage to Tahiti
During this passage, Lauren Landers Sailing was seeing 8 to 12 knots of wind, giving boat speeds of around 4 to 5.5 knots. While 4 knots is a little slower than ideal, the wind was on the stern and the waves were behind the boat, making for a very comfortable and pleasant sail. There was one small squall that briefly bumped wind up to around 20 knots before settling back to normal. At the midpoint of the passage she had roughly 200 miles down and estimated about a day and a half remaining. Wind was forecast to build to 15 knots by the following day, which would increase speed. Her benchmark was averaging around 5.5 knots to arrive on schedule.
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Slowing down deliberately to time a reef pass arrival correctly
As Lauren Landers Sailing closed within range of the atoll, she reefed her jib intentionally to reduce boat speed. She was on track to arrive too early, and entering a reef pass at the wrong time, before the light is good or the current is
What it feels like to transit an atoll for the first time without it being too sketchy
After completing the pass entry, Lauren reflects that the conditions were relatively flat, which made for a good first experience. The key takeaway is that if the waves had been bigger, waiting for them to settle would have been the right c
MembersFollowing a shared Navionics track from another boat through coral bommies
After clearing the pass, Lauren Landers Sailing follows a Navionics navigation track that another boat had recently shared. The GPS vessel icon moves along a charted pink route line plotted carefully between shallow coral reef formations an