NOON POSITION 18:59.73N 36:05.67W
Aurelia
Shirley and Michael Webb-Speight
Fri 22 Dec 2006 16:35
LAST 24 HOURS:123NM, 1397 MILES TO GO
ATLANTIC MATHS;
Those avid readers who like to work things out will have noticed some apparent discrepancies in our distances - which I shall attempt to explain.
last 24 hours is taken from the ships log - which is the distance traveled through the water. we have a current under us which at times is with us and at times taking us in odd directions. the ships log cant register this - only the distance through the water.
the miles to go is calculated by the Nav system and is based on our current GPS position - so it ignores the current. it is however taking us on a great circle course which is generally shown as a curve on your standard map projection - but it is we are assured the fastest way around the globe to Barbados
occasionally we have errors which can only be accounted for as human - writing down the wrong numbers - that sort of thing
a further factor is that we put the clocks back 1 hour each 15 degrees of longitude - which we elected to do today - so our noon position is actually 25 hours since our last update - although we only use the previous 24 hours for the 24 hour run statistic. this has been the subject of considerable debate aboard as you can imagine
you might be interested to know that we intend to celebrate the half way mark as the point at which total miles logged equals miles to go - which is nonsense of course, but makes a kind of weird sense floating around out here.
so hopefully you can all sleep better in the knowledge that we still are making slow progress towards the West
any reader with too much time on their hands may have noticed yesterdays obvious mathematical error - 5500m is only .55km - still bloody deep though!
the wind has lightened off again - to a point which is a little frustrating as we slop around in the confused seas. we are running the engine again today to generate some power so have it in drive to give us a little forward momentum - could be good for the movie which the kids have just opened as an early Christmas present. Hope I dont need another swim to sort out the prop blades again.
Shirley completed the reading of our guide to Barbados - sounds like an interesting place with the Mount Gay rum factory and Speightstown at the top of our list to visit!