Dog's Knee

Stravaig'n the Blue
Sun 11 Oct 2020 19:41
Position: 44.15.71 N 009.48.15 W (North Atlantic Ocean / Bay of Biscay)
Timestamp: Sunday 11th October 2020 16:00 BST (UTC+1)

The plan had been to gybe here and head 175 towards Cabo Finisterre. Being inshore at Cabo Finisterre was based on the forecast on the day we left (Thursday) which said there would be far less wind inshore than offshore. But things change.

Inshore there will be a lot of wind this evening which was why we added the dog leg to delay arrive inshore at Cabo Finisterre until midday tomorrow. But when we looked at the latest weather this afternoon it was clear that (a) the wind shift we needed to get to Cabo Finisterre in one leg was looking less pronounced (b) a large hole in the wind was developing briefly overnight half way along that route  and (c) the wind offshore was looking favourable.

So we decided not to gybe and to continue on starboard tack into the night. Current course over the ground is 200 but the wind out here is expected to back which will take CoG to nearer 180 ie due south.

Taking this course also means we will pass to the west of the Cabo Finisterre Traffic Separation Scheme so we won’t need to re-cross the Cabo Finisterre / Île d’Ouessant shipping lanes. Hoorah.

The only down side to our decision seems to be that we wont be close enough to the coast tomorrow to get a mobile phone signal that would allow us to download the newspapers, emails, podcasts, etc and post a blog entry with some photographs in it.  But well explore coming inshore somewhere else along the coast when we get the latest forecast tomorrow morning.

All’s well.

Allan