In December I crossed the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Barbados on a friends Lagoon 380. For the first 2000 miles or so we had calms or very light winds and so fellow crew member Erick could fly his drone. After a while you don't notice the swells when on board, it's just a gentle rocking motion. Even when the wind picked up there were none of the "mountainous seas" beloved by the media! See detailed reports, photos etc on my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/richard.woods.designs

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We had an interesting final sail on Peter's Firebird in the most wind I sailed in when in Barbados - we sailed with 2 reefs. Peter's friend Eric has a foiling waveboard and he wanted to foil behind the Firebird. In the end he managed it, but there was lots of falling in at the beginning. It was hard work for Peter and I as we had to start at near zero speed, so Eric could grab the tow rope, then slowly accelerate to about 7 knots so he could get ready for lift off. Then accelerate to 10 knots very quickly, so he could lift out. And then control the speed at 10-12 rather than surge up to 15-18. But of course the wind would drop, or he'd fall in or.... but, as I say, after 2 hours he did manage to fly for maybe 30 secs. Although, if we were quick enough, we could stop and heave to after he fell in, sometimes we sailed on too far and then we had to pull in the tow rope (we discovered it was too easy to get it entangled on rudders and daggerboards), tack round and sail back. As always it was scary how quickly a head disappears from view. But interestingly we could easily see him when he was in the sun, it was when he was north of us that he became invisible (one of his sons kept a very close eye on Dad, religiously pointing to his position). Flat water helped, and lots of passing day charter cats got a bit confused by seeing a swimmer apparently a mile out to sea but happily waving!

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see my article on steering comfort

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