Planning our weaving path through the doldrum

S/Y Pelerin
Colin Speedie & Louise Johnson
Sat 22 Dec 2012 11:09
12:21.579N 25:54.656W

The doldrums, more officially termed the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (or ITCZ), is a band of squally rain and thunderstorms containing a lot of slack air. We have to get through the ITCZ to get to and south of the Equator, en route to Brazil over the next week or so.

Prior to studying the ITCZ in detail, I’d had romantic notions of gently wafting through the doldrums, enjoying enforced bobbing about in a paradise of warm suns and little breeze… ahh, I thought, time on my hands, how lovely, time to get out that book I’ve been meaning to read, time to knit a jumper that I won’t wear because it’s too hot... Now, with a little knowledge, I realise that being actually in the doldrums is not good, and you want to get yourselves and boat through in as short a time as physically possible. In theory you want to try and cross the ITCZ at one of its narrower patches, but of course, just to spice things up a bit, these locations change on a daily basis. With the help our friends Steve Wrye and Tracy Willett based in Oregon (with good internet access to satellite images and excellent weather routing knowledge), we are tracking the position and thickness of the ITCZ with each new weather bulletin.

We think we’ve found our crossing point, so those following our progress on the AIS (see http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ and search for boat ‘pelerin’) will see we’re aiming for the Equator, currently on a bearing of roughly 200deg, just to the east of some mid-Atlantic rocks called Rochas de San Pedro aka St. Paul’s rocks (where a few lucky Brazilians get to sit out and do weather observations!). This will allow us to pass through the ITCZ east of 26 degW, and thereby skirt around some convection clusters, and thus avoid thunderstorms. You don’t like thunderstorms if you’re on a boat. As you’re aware, lightning likes to strike the tallest thing in the area, and sitting here with an aluminium mast of roughly 18m above sea level with nothing else in view, you do feel like a bit of a target. And we don’t want to be hit by lightning, as it will likely take out all of our electronics… and frazzle the boat somewhat.

But on the lighter side of things, we’ve realised it’s only 3 days to Christmas. Myself and Ronnie have completely over-ruled Colin, and not allowed him to cancel Christmas (he can be a ‘bar humbug’ sort of character). We’ve not had to worry about any of the usual hassles of Christmas. With only a few days to go before the usual land-based merriment and mass exchange of unwanted gifts, out at sea we’re blissfully unaware of last posting dates and whether John Lewis will stay open until 6pm on Christmas Eve. We don’t have any turkey on board, but I have smuggled on a bottle of champagne. Well, two really; one for Christmas Day, and one for when we cross the Equator. We’ll have to get our skates on, but in the event of crossing the Equator actually on Christmas Day, then we’d just have to down both bottles in one sitting…! With lots of roast potatoes, and whatever else we can find in the food cupboards.

For those following Ronnie, our third crew member on board for this Cape Verde-Brazil passage, he’s having a ball! He's getting through the factor 50 sun-cream like a trooper, and has rediscovered a liking for hot mango squash (...yeah, that's what I said). He’ll write his own blog entry soon, and upload a few photos. But hope that the money he’s raising as part of his sponsored sail is still growing.

Lou, Colin & Ronnie
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