IN ENGLISH THIS TIME
Shiraz Atlantic Voyage 2009
Tomas Bartosz
Sun 10 May 2009 21:35
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Hello everyone!
First I must apologize for not have done any
updates in english before.
I´m sorry and promise to make up for it in the
future.
But better late than never aye?
As I´m sitting her trying to write the ships diary
in an 20 degree angel and bumpy waves I will try to make a short
summary.
As you can see from our track on the map we decided
to use the Gulf stream as far as we could to get a good ride up along americas
coast. we had between 2 and 4 knots current all the way up to Cape Fear before
we decided to go east.
Decision made on the basis of the weather forcasts
that we recived during the first days.
It turned out to be a good decision and the wind
turned to our favour the following days as well.
So far we have had a really smooth ride and great
luck with the weather and seas.
For that, Neptune, we are truely greatful!
:-)
This enclosed bimini that we have on this boat is a
blessing!
No matter the weather we sit in great comfort
playing cards or reading.
Night as day.
Otherwise the wind and rain will make you pretty
tired after a coulpe of days.
If we would have had the sun beating down on
us too it would have been much moore difficult.
The boat her self is preforming super!
She has great speed even in weak winds and she
rides the swell and breaking waves really good too.
It feels really good and it seems I made a good
choice buying this Irwin 68. (thanks Gene!)
The boat squeeks and gneeks alot, but hey she is an
old lady (23 years old) and has the right to do so
and the extensive wooden interior is of course the
reason for that. It would be strange otherwise.
But we are taking it easy with her and are most of
the time sailing reefed. 2 on the main and staysail.
She runs at between 7 and 10 knots anyway and as I
said before. My aim is to get her back to Stockholm in one piece!
:-o
Most of the time we have SW to WSW winds around
16-22 knots, so it is a very nice ride!
Today at noon we passed exactly half way to the
Azores and Horta. 1429 NM.
All together that makes an average of 7.52
knots.
It may seem slowly with such a big boat and I´m
sure there are a whole lot of you that could sail this baby faster too, But as I
said before. One piece she is now and that is how she´s gonna stay
!
Top speed so far is 13,8 knots with all four sails
up but then the wind was only around18 knots.
So I´m happy! :-D
Ok, this is it fro now and I once again promise to
write more often in english.
Captn´ T with
mates
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