Plugging Along
Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sun 16 Aug 2009 11:13
Course: Southwest Speed: 5 knots
Wind: West, light
Weather: Overcast, mild
Day's run: 92 miles
At 3 p.m. some wind arrived and up went the sails, initially from the north it soon backed around into the west, a dead muzzler, so while I have posted a day's run of 92 miles we have in fact only made good a distance of 54 miles in the direction we wish to go. The tide continues to play havoc with our progress, obviously it all averages out over a few days but when sailing close hauled it can very misleading as to the how well the boat is sailing. Alderney is not too far off now, only 26 miles. Ordinarily I would say we would easily make it my this evening but we have a foul tide to get through yet where we will quite probably make no progress at all, and if last night is anything to go by will probably end up going backwards for a few hours.
A high speed wave piercing catamaran ferry just went past, I could hear the high pitch whine of its turbines from below. Now I reckon a nice little omni-directional passive sonar would be a very useful anti-collision device for yachts.
We keep plugging along.
All is well.
Bob Cat:
Skipper Bob is making like a yo-yo again, up and down all night. Still I do my best to accommodate and think I am getting the hang of his idiosyncracies, try to make room for him when he returns to the bunk - aren't I just the considerate one.
I am starting to think Elbuort was in fact an hallucination, haven't heard from him for two days now. Skipper Bob fixed up the salt water pump two days ago now, is it a coincidence? It still leaks just a tiny bit, maybe Elbuort is busy working on this. It is probably taking all of his mystical powers to get the glue to come unstuck Anyway for now I can sleep in peace . Zzzzzzz.