Underway for 48 hours....."fish on" -- twice!
Wallace's Sailing Adventure on "Arbella"
Mike and Vicki Wallace
Sat 27 May 2017 13:17
http://blog.mailasail.com/arbella We have just passed the "48 hours
underway mark" (0830 on Saturday morning), and averaged exactly "200 miles
per day"....that is a sailors benchmark for a "good day of sailing in the
open ocean"!! BUT...we are now down to wind 6 knots, and all sails
"flogging"... so we took in all sails and are now motoring at 1800 rpm. So
here is the "STEM Math problem" for the grandkids...."What would you do if
you were Captain Poppi?" Do we run the engine to keep moving, and use up
precious fuel, or, do we "sit and bob" becalmed and wait for the next
weather front with wind...."what would you do".... here are the parameters:
total fuel remaining -- 1240 liters; distance to go to Annapolis -- 1,050
nautical miles; need 10 liters of fuel each day to run generator and charge
the batteries and make water with the water maker; need to hold 100 liters
in reserve for "emergency"; motoring at 1800 rpm consumes 8 liters per hour,
and moves the boat at 7 knots; motoring at 1400 rpm consumes 5 liters per
hour, and moves the boat at 6 knots; motoring at 2000 rpm consumes 10 liters
per hour, and moves the boat at 8 knots. We expect to see some good wind
again in 2+ days. "Poppi is waiting for an email response to know what to
do....Alex, Nate, Issy....who has an answer???? So this morning, with
the fishing pole out (and after loosing a lure and line yesterday), we had
a "big fish on". Rich worked it for about 20 minutes when the line
broke....but then, not 5 minutes later, we saw a big "bill fish" (maybe a
marlin) jump which was obviously trying to get rid of the lure he ran off
with....he will be fine .... and we would never have been able to land him
anyway....that was the excitement for the morning....except that "Captain
Underpants" was somewhere spotted in the commotion....and that is the end of
the story (and it was not "Captain Poppi"). Having trouble sending photos,
but will keep trying!