Slow Progress
The Travels of Running Tide
Mick Norman
Wed 23 Jul 2014 12:19
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Our position at 12 00 on 23 July is
48:38.8N 009:35.5W . We have about 172 nm to run to Land’s End and we have
completed 69 nm in the last day. Ten full days completed.
July 22 – The new forecast wasn’t
quite so dire as the previous one but it’s clear that we are not going to
complete this passage in a flourish.
Progress was good into the late
afternoon but slowed up toward the evening when we were headed by about 15
degrees. The evening has turned out to be very pleasant but slow. Its very black
as there is no moon for much of the evening but that means plenty of stars. More
ships are now visible on our AIS/chartplotter but nothing within our range of
vision.
July 23 – Very slow progress down to
no progress for a while. At 06 00 the wind is light and right on the nose. One
thing RT is not good at is beating into wind. It sails nicely but the angle
between port and starboard tack is of the order of 120 taking into consideration
leeway. We knew that the wind was going to back throughout the day so we choose
a port tack, that way at least we will be lifted as the swing swings to the
north. Over the next few hour we were lifted and are now doing about 93 deg
true. Our required course is 63 deg true. Basically we are heading for France at
the moment. We keep keeping on and hope we get the forecast northerly by this
evening. We have spare minutes of time on our sat phone and so we will take
another forecast before the contract runs out today.
The seas are very calm but there is a
massive swell. So somewhere they are getting some wind.
I was sitting in the cockpit minding
my own business when I looked up and saw that three small whales where swimming
alongside RT. They were going quite slowly as we overhauled them and we were
only doing 2 kts. I’m not sure what sort they were. They were swimming along
very close together almost touching rising up and down slowly in the water like
dolphins but in slow motion. They were very black and their heads were very
blunt and whale like as opposed to dolphin. I don’t think they were young, they
were a smaller type of whale. They were around for quite a while in the
distance. It reminded me of a sighting we had of orcas or killer whales off
Haiti. In that case they passed us in a very determined manner and totally
ignored us. They looked very sinister I remember.
We have also seen quite a few dolphin
close to RT this morning in the calm waters. There are more birds now even a few
swallows and now flies. There are ships all around us on the AIS/chartplotter
but still none in visual
contact. |