Going Backwards?

Where Next?
Bob Williams
Tue 15 Mar 2011 22:59
Noon Position: 13 03.6 S 143 43.0 W
Course South west Speed 6 knots
Wind: South east, F4 Moderate breeze
Weather: Sunny, warm
Day's run: 170 nm

I might not be going backwards in time but my celestial navigation skills seem to be going backwards. Yesterday I managed to mess up the time, this morning I managed to mess up the date. That really threw me for a bit but as I completed my morning sun sight the penny dropped and I realised why the position lines for my morning stars looked almost as bad as my first attempts oh so many years ago. I looked at the page full of calculations for seven sights, erased the lot and started again. I feel a little frustrated with myself for making such silly errors but am happy that in the end that I worked it out. Hopefully a bit more practice with the tables will see the number of mistakes I make diminish rapidly.

I noticed the solar panels had stopped charging this morning, found a loose wire in the lazarette, now fixed.

I might not be making good progress with the celestial but Sylph is making good progress with the passage. By my calculations we made 170 miles over the last 24 hours, with about half a knot of current giving us a nice little boost. We will be approaching the Tuamotu Archipelago tonight so this evening's stars had better be good. Then of course there is always the GPS in its glass case – just in case of emergency.

Miss the old BC.

All is well.