Music

Moorglade's Voyage
Ted Wilson
Tue 16 Jul 2013 15:53
Our position is 45:01.083N 24:23.927W
 
Distance logged in the last 24 hours 131.4
 
Music comes in various forms on Moorglade. Firstly is the tradition that the watch keeper gets to choose the music. Whilst we were all very respectful of each others choice it left some unanswered questions. Who sold more records, The Bee Gees or Bob Dylan? Was Mrs Gibb a well known artist in her own right? Is the output of either, truly "music"? These matters will need further investigation.
 
The next form of music is the string quartet playing to every wave. Sheets, preventers and other sundry lines play a never ending tune repeated time after time as Moorglade lifts and falls over the crest and the loads come on the rig.
 
Thirdly are the electrical tunes played by the many pieces of equipment that keep Moorglade running. First up is the humming of the generator, trailing off the stern making its own phosphorescent wake and charging the batteries. Ted can hear this spinning from his bed and can confirm a good run by the level of charge in the batteries.Then there are the users of the power, with the autohelm keeping us on a remarkably good track. Next most important is the freshwater maker which sounds like a low flying plane and one is tempted to look skywards just to make sure we are not being watched from above. Add to this the chart plotter, various GPSs, radio and lights as well of course the ship's sound system on which we played the music
 
For those who picture us standing day after day at the wheel, you are wrong. We have not meaningfully touched the wheel since we left Angra in the Azores. It has all been taken care of by the autohelm.
 
We continue to debate our tactics given the weather predictions which show Easterlies across our path as we approach the English Channel. Whilst we have a good Southerly breeze catapulting us Eastwards at present we have an area of little or no wind a few days ahead and then the wind on the nose. How to position ourselves to make best use of our fuel supplies and any bias in the wind to N or S, occupies a lot of our thoughts. At 15.00 today we had 900Nm to Dartmouth in a straight line. Unfortunately our course is likely to be far from straight.
 
Given this is a blog about music I was tempted to add a few "Notes" but have decided against that. Instead I will borrow from one of the great Bee Gees records; Saturday Night Fever, and to those at home "You are the one(s) that we love -oo oo oo"
Ted asked me to put my initials at the bottom so that no-one would think he has written this blog. So here  goes.
RB