Music
Moorglade's Voyage
Ted Wilson
Tue 16 Jul 2013 15:53
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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
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