A stroke of luck
Moorglade's Voyage
Ted Wilson
Sat 22 Jun 2013 17:41
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Our Position is 37:40.15N 52:48.19W
Distance run in the last 24 hours
166Nm
Distance to Flores
1011Nm
We had made a total of a thousand nautical miles by
the time we were having dinner last night so, as conditions were quite
favourable we opened our first bottle of wine, a quite acceptable Portuguese
red. A very pleasant sociable meal with all three of us in the cockpit.
Excellent! (sailing to windward, with double reefed main and genoa rolled
up to a number two, is still a bit bouncy, but a hell of a lot better than what
we have had to put up with)
Actually by eight thirty this morning, one week
after departure we had covered 1,102 Nm, giving us an average daily run of
157Nm. Of course not quite in a straight line to our destination, but still we
are pleased with progress.
Yesterday evening, after studying the gribs again,
we expected the wind to die and the direction to be unpredictable. However we
just kept on going at a steady 6kts close hauled in a NE to NNE 10 to 20knt
breeze, and that is what we are still doing and hope to do for another 12 to 24
hours. The crew must have been living right. I thought coming south would give
our best chance of working round the calm bits but to hit it so sweetly was
totally a stroke of luck. Our luck has to run out some time, so all bets are for
out ETA.
Not a lot of interest to report, Jim had the
company of a school of dolphins early this morning, we have seen a few ships
today on the AIS but none sighted, The weather is currently sunny and the air
clear. John is taking this first laundry opportunity as he has run out of dry
clothes. I'm hoping this afternoon will be focussed on personal hygiene and
laundry even though the motion is not ideal. Annoyingly we have spent some time
recently with weed slowing the rotation of the duogen and currently it is
probably best not to run the water maker without the engine going. Plenty
of water still in the tanks though.
We have received info that Silver Shoes who
left Woods Hole at the same time that we left Marion and is being routed by
Chris Parker hove too for a day in the gale and so might well be behind us. It
would be good to know how Vivaldi is getting on, but we do not want to download
several emails via Iridium, so, Chris Bale, if your reading this and know where
they are on their passage please send us a mail. We are not at all competitive,
just interested in their progress.
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