Swimming with the Fishes 20:31.383N 27:33.373W

Row Across The Pond
Richard Hoyland and Steve Coe
Thu 21 Jan 2010 16:35
Todays topics of discussion on the boat have been, when should we make our turn to Antigua and how do we make the boat go faster. These are the two most important things to plague our minds at the moment.
 
On the turn. Ocean rowing boats typically head South as quickly as possible from the Canaries to pick up on the trade winds that blow to the West from Africa over to the Carribean every year between 19 and 20 degrees north. Each race teams take a gamble as to how much of the corner they can cut off to shorten the distance and still pick up on the strong trade winds. Stronger crews tend to gamble more because they can provide more power to push the boat through the water if the winds are less favourable. We're not giving anything away with our turn point...top secret :-)
One piece of info it would be useful to get from someone out there in blogland would be whether the trade winds are blowing from east to west between 19N and 20N and their strength? Pretty please
 
On the speed. These boat ain't fast and it's a puzzle to get them to move quicker, you can redistribute weight and play around with the rowing technique but they seem to just plod along. One method is to make sure that the bottom of the boat is clear of weed / barnacles, so today Steve dived in and scraped the rubbish off of the hull while I stood on Shark watch (a tough job). Plenty of fish around watching the work going on and I got my chance to swim with them afterwards...the water is soo blue and deep, amazing experience swimming in the middle of the Atlantic. The fish are incredibly ugly with big heads nd tiny little mouths (phew), but come is laser blue and yellow colours
 
We're in the process of organising a live link up with Radio Sounthern Counties, possible for the 25th January, we'll keep you informed so you can listen to us on the web.
 
So, boat life plods on..with it's own rhythm...usually pretty slow ;-) But like the the stop to swim with the fishes, it has it's moments.
 
Thanks for those sending sports and especially the footie results, might have to crack open my small bottle of bubbly to celebrate the City win :-)
 
Gabriel, the exam answers came through perfectly, thanks, certainly raised a smile
 
fish.. nice colour scheme but pretty ugly.. but they prob thought same about me..... steve