Atlantic Adventure Part 3 - Day 6
Kirofbrixham
Wed 12 May 2010 15:38
|
Dear Reader,
Current position "30:40.63N
65:25.5W"
Those of you following our progress may wonder why,
after 5 days of sailing due north we suddenly turned to the NW. The reason
is simple - wind. As you may know sailing boats cannot head directly into
the wind. Although I will not try and explain the technicalities, top
flight racing boats may be able to sail to 40 degrees off the wind but most can
only get to within 45 degrees. Kir is, shall we say, a mature lady of 22
years and her sail inventory has covered over 10,000nm. Suffice to say
that Kir tacks through about 100 degrees in flat water and perhaps as much as
110 degrees at sea. Add to that the crew's dislike of the slamming
associated with close hauled sailing in a sea and it becomes clear that Kir's
angle to the wind is less than desirable. Over the last 24 hours we have
had NNE winds up to force 7. Much too strong to motor against. As a
result we have been forced to sail away to the west, making a course of about
330 degrees. The direct course to Bermuda when we set off was 358 degrees
so we have been off by about 30 degrees.
The sailing was fantastic once the sea had gone
down from the previous day's blow. We were making up to 7kts through the
water and over 8kts over the ground. But never quite in the right
direction!
Having gone west, we now need to climb back to the
east for our approach to Bermuda. We had planned to tack to port at dawn
but the wind faded and we our now back on the tin topsail (motor) making a
direct course for St George's. Wind is forecast to be light for the next
24 hours so it is likely we will motor all the way. With 116nm to go as I
write and 4.5kts on the log we will arrive in a little over 24 hours from now
(10.30 local), hopefully in daylight.
So far we have encountered three distinct weather
systems. In the BVI's we had the easterly trade winds. As we moved
out of the tropics (we crossed the Tropic of Cancer on 8th May) we moved into
the Horse Latitudes which are bit like the doldrums with little wind, where the
tropical weather systems and the North American weather systems meet. We
are now into those more northerly systems. The wind we had yesterday was
the interface between the Horse Latitudes and the more northerly weather
systems. Now we've broken through, the temperature has dropped
significantly. We still have clear blue skies but the air is distinctly
chilly. We now need sheets on us at night and may even have to break
out the sleeping bags for the final night at sea before Bermuda.
As I write this we are being overtaken by a large
freighter sailing a near parallel course. Jim spotted it first and since
then we have been tracking it on radar. It is passing us about 1.7nm to
port - close by ocean standards but a safe distance nevertheless.
This is only the second vessel we have seen in nearly 6 days at
sea.
At midday local time we will have been at sea 6
days. We're all a little weary despite getting up to 12 hours sleep a
day. The boat never stops moving and you have to compensate all the time;
not hard physical effort but sustained low level exercise. It will be
interesting to see how it has affected our weight. Food wise, the fresh
fruit has nearly all gone, there are a few fresh vegetables left and we still
have some meat in the freezer. Much of this will need to be used today so
we're looking forwards to a blow out meal tonight. As we're going to be
out a day longer than planned we've yet to decide who is cooking but Jim claims
to be an expert with hamburger meat (minced beef) so he'll probably get the
nod.
There is little else to report. A bolt has
come loose from the wind generator frame but this cannot be rectified without
emptying the aft locker so we've elected to lash it up for now and fix it in
Bermuda. No other breakages, despite the pounding we've taken. Kir
remains a solid, dependable, safe boat.
Hopefully at the next blog we will be in sight of
the island of Bermuda. Until then....
Ian, Graeme and Jim on Kir of
Brixham
|