Day 15
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Position
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Well here we are with under 300 miles to go. We heard yesterday that Duckwall Pooley, a Beneteau First 42S7, crewed by a delightful band of Scots had lost it's rig with 160 miles to go. They were leading our class over the water (before handicaps are applied), and at least 300 miles ahead of us. Apparently all on board are safe, and by now they will be safely tied up, having motored the remaining distance to Rodney Bay, St Lucia. We feel very much for them because they have raced that boat so well.
All discussion on board Majic 2 relates to when the light winds will arrive. This will really hurt the boats that have not finished at the time the wind speed drops, since handicapping premises are based on standard wind and tide conditions for all boats in a race. If the slower boats have to battle on in light airs it will definitely affect their corrected times
The ARC weather briefing service is predicting a drop of 5 to 10 knots by midnight tonight, and Aden Clark, our Guernsey-based ground controller is forecasting the same. The mathematical model we have downloaded over the internet gives noon tomorrow, and The US met service is giving Wednesday morning. If we keep the present wind force of easterly 25 knots to the finish we will be in Rodney Bay in the early hours of Wedenesday morning.
We have had an email from one of our regular correspondents asking how we adjust our clocks to the 4 hour time zone difference between Cran Canaria and St Lucia. What happens usually on board ship is that clocks are moved by 1 hour for every 15 degrees of longitude travelled. We haven't bothered for many reasons. The main one being that we are working 4 hour watches through every day and week, so sunrise, sunset, mealtimes and bedtime mean nothing to us. So we settled on running our lives on GMT, and will take the jet lag effect in one hit when we arrive, in much the same way as aircraft passengers do. |