Half Way
The Travels of Running Tide
Mick Norman
Sat 19 Jul 2014 12:23
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Our position at 12 00 on 19 July is
45:10.2N 018:24.7W . We have about 590 nm to run to Land’s End and we have
completed 121 nm in the last day. Six full days completed. We are just over half
way and with fair winds could be in Falmouth Thursday or Friday.
July 18 – We were hoping to continue
the good work of the morning and we weren’t disappointed. The weather has been
overcast as we are riding on the tail of a depression which is moving
eastwards.We are loosing ground on the centre of the depression which is
supposed to move east and then north but we expecting to experience high winds
later in the day.
For a while in the early evening we
were treated to a remarkable display by a very large pod of dolphins. These
fellas seemed to be having a whale of a time (they are related to whales). Not
quite breaching but having there own version. They were flying off into the air
quite high sometimes to land with a mighty splash. Some revolving as they jumped
and landing on their sides or on their backs. We are not quite sure why they do
this. Showing off to us, unlikely, courtship we weren’t interested, or just
plain getting rid of parasites on their skin. Anyway what ever the reason it was
a very special interlude in an interesting day.
We had one reef in the main and the
head sail reefed. Night was coming on and things didn’t look as if it was going
to get quieter some time soon. So before trying to cook the evening meal, Norm’s
tea we stuck another reef in the main. This proved to be a good move, apart from
making cooking a lot easier it served us well throughout the night were we had
consistent wind in the lower 20s and occasional 28/29 kts. I reckon the rig we
had set up would be good for about 35 kts above that we may have to consider
other options. These being reef more head sail, take down the main. Not favoured
as its such a pain getting it back up again. We always have our trusty mizen
mast (our spare mast!) which we haven’t used in anger for a long
time.
July 19 - It did rain at times and we did get a few green
jobbies over the side which we managed to avoid by hiding in the doghouse or
below. I got dumped on in my bunk. I think the boatyard where I had some work
done over the winter damaged some woodwork on deck and this seems to have opened
up a seam between the deck and the wooden superstructure. As a consequence a
small torrent of cold water would land on me every time we had a sluicing on the
deck. Another job to sort out and a sleeping bag and mattress to dry. I ended up
in the main cabin in a damp bag.
The wind has abated now but still in the upper
teens. Interestingly it doesn’t matter what the wind does we seem to go at more
or less the same speed. That is a fact when reefing. If RT needs a reef because
we are heeling too much the reef generally doesn’t slow us down and sometime we
go faster. Less weather helm therefore less drag.
The shearwaters are still with us, our constant
companions. No ships though, not even showing on the AIS, we don’t see any
aircraft either. I think we saw one a couple of days ago as a vapour trail and
got us thinking that they were the nearest humans to us. How far away were they
though. A bit of basic geometry gave us an approximate answer. I think in this
case it was about 16 nm.
A
few days ago I said we were having it easy. Today has made up earn our corn. As
you leave us we are doing nicely under overcast skies in a fair breeze with a
good forecast for the next couple of
days. |