Day 3 – Noon 21^st May to Noon 22^nd May

We’ve slowed down. The storm warning in the North has now been lifted as the big winds move further North and East. (Red at the top of the chart)  Now we’re faced with a totally different problem. Light/no winds and high pressure. (Blue on the chart)

Now all the evening classes said you get high pressure near the Azores with a series of lows and fronts to the North. That generates a conveyor belt of air flows between the two systems. These air flows move East and you can hitch a ride on them. So much for evening classes.

We have an enormous high pressure system that stretches for over 2,500 miles in one direction and about 500 miles in the other. (Blue on the chart) We’re on the South West side of it (just North of the green winds which are going in the wrong direction) and have to cross the blue zone to find the conveyor belt (green/orange/yellow) that will carry us East to the Azores. We’re now becalmed and motoring.

To make matters worse there’s a big low building down near the Bahamas (bottom left -red) that’s going to generate big winds heading West if we can’t outpace them.

Graham neatly summarised it “Well then Skip, now you know why there’s only 20 boats doing this trip compared to over 200 that did the easy trip in the other direction”

Hear that Benji – you did the easy crossing!

Still we now had a terrific reason to eat the whole rum chocolate cake in one sitting!

Paul - Peejay