200 miles is not always 200 miles
Moxie - Beck Family Adventure
Mike, Denise, Asia and Aranya Beck
Wed 5 Nov 2014 08:01
Motor sailing
Ok , 30 minutes after I wrote this but obviously prior to sending the wind moved west, we spoke with Amandala on VHF and he has the latest forecast based on which we have both tacked and now heading more or less towards Opua making VMG 5.5kts! Such is New Zealand weather for you.
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Motor sailing into 8 to 15 knot southerly winds, actual boat speed is 4.4 knots, vmg (velocity made good) I.e. How quickly we are getting to Opua is just 3.0 knots. Motoring directly slows us down to 2 point something knots so we are cutting an angle which of course means distance travelled is far more than the 200 miles on the rhumb line, but we will still get there quicker than going direct. In the next 24 hours we should be able to tack and also have a helpful wind shift to SW.
We can't change the weather and can't go back so we play with the cards dealt and accept that sometimes the dealer simply and quickly changes our hand. It is calm, sunny and pretty warm, we managed to sneak through a very weak part of the front last night, Amandala the 473 had extreme rainfall just 8 miles to the west of us whereas we just had drizzle. Amandala and ourselves are pacing well and currently in sight of each other.
Currently towing a hand line, still no fish.