14:38.1N 55:27.0W 48 hours or less to go 7th December 2009
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Mon 7 Dec 2009 03:53
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Hi folks,
Tonight is the second last night on watch or maybe
we will get becalmed and have to sail through Tuesday night? I am pretty
confident however that before the sun rises on Wednesday morning (Caribbean
time) we will have arrived in St Lucia. Depending on which method of
calculation you use Dugald's Mine or Chris' you arrive between 9pm local time on
Tuesday and 2am local time on Wednesday. We could of course all be wrong
but I am quietly confident we will be out only by a few hours one way or the
other. There is a mystery as well, our log is showing that we ran 167
Nmiles yesterday which is a 7 Knot average but I think when we look at the
published totals we will se a slightly longer run. I think this may be
down to the effect of the Equatorial Atlantic Current which is giving us a a few
miles extra every day. Remember the turtles floating on the current down
to the Canaries, I think they are out there somewhere here and I think they are
on to something. As I have said before it was all carefully set out in that
famous documentary Finding NEMO. It may be my active midnight imagination
working overtime but I think there is something in this. And I think I
will be proven to have the winning time. The sweepstake is for a non prize
really, who buys the first round, but it is a matter of honour. To set it
out in writing:
Ben (Skipper and Owner of Snark):
9pm local time, Tuesday 8th December
Dugald (Crew, Chief Medical Officer and
Quartermaster): 2am local time,
Wednesday 9th December
Chris (Crew, on board Journalist and Cabin
boy):
10pm local time, Tuesday 8th December
Furthest from the actual time buys the beer.
If anyone wants to join in, of course you need to get to St Lucia to benefit
from the beer please mail me your answers (or just your good wishes or
greetings) at
One hardly worn Snark T shirt to the winner?
To make it fair here are some statistics for you to base your estimates
on:
Miles to go at 2am UK time:
323Nm
average log speed for whole
trip: 7.0 Knots
Estimated average for last 48 hours:
7.5Knots
St Lucia is 4 hours behind the UK time
also keep in mind we may have to sail slightly off
the wind depending on the direction which would increase our speed but also
our distance. See what you come up with.
My spreadsheet showing possible transits is bearing
out the turtle theory. The high probability arrival time (based on our
average speed to date) is now showing 8pm Local time, whereas the aggressive
sail to the line estimate is now indicating a time as early as 5pm in the
evening. A sunset arrival it would be perfect, If that is the case I
hope someone on the beach gets a photo of our arrival. I shall be sure an
provide a dawn update on expected arrival when I blog tomorrow in the small
hours of Tuesday morning.
I spy a black ugly cloud (Ummm note to self...
pretty sure all clouds are black at night) so I am pausing mid blog to put my
hands on the wheel and relieve George who does not like squalls and can struggle
to keep course. The last thing we need is another gybe we had a couple of
unplanned today which have caused a small amount of damage to the
mainsail. very repairable but I don't want to break another boom
car.
......
False alarm no rain and the cloud would probably
made to look a lot more menacing by the moon behind it. Well what
else happened since my last blog entry. Well today was the day where we
actually had quite a big squall, even then we were lucky as the squall cloud
seemed to split in 2 around us, still we had winds up to 33 knots and wives
causing up to broach quite badly and we had a gibe (as the preventer hand not
been rigged) which was quite violent (this is when we lost the bottom mainsail
car I think). Nothing dangerous but some excitement for the Crew neither
of whom have been out in really big winds, thankfully I don't think that will
change before we arrive in St Lucia. I for one would not like to get some
of the winds we have had in Venice and the Adriatic in the middle of the
Atlantic with the large waves that would bring with it. I recall 2
occasions with over 40 knots in Venice one of those with over 50 knots and
another when we were outside the lagoon sailing down from Aprilia in 35 knots
trying to tie up at Celeste, not much fun and a couple of new scratches.
The weather has been kind to us and the services of our Wind Witch have been
greatly appreciated. (Squall photo attached in next blog
entry)
Also our fishing success seems to be
improving, In addition to the perfect Tuna we landed the other day, today
we landed a king fish (photo see next entry). I think our rig is up to the
game at this sort of speed, we really were motoring in the first 48 hours so the
fish that were taking our lures at 9+ knots were real monsters of the deep able
to just bite through our line. Regardless of all this analysis the
resulting meal was fantastic and very welcome addition to our fresh
stores. I think another week at sea would get to be a very boring diet
without the addition of fresh fish. next time more strong line, wires for
the lures and more lures (we only have 2 left out of ?? around 8 or 10 we
started with).
Before I close, time to start some reflections on
the trip and the experience. One observation is that given the enormous
amount of time we have on our hands here on the boat it is easy to look at each
passing day and think what did I do to fill the hours and what did I
achieve. Aside from the obvious we are achieving an Atlantic passage, the
first for all of us, it just goes to show how time flies by in one's life.
Going on a major ocean voyage has been a dream of mine since childhood, when in
Australia I watched an amateur video called World Safari. This film
(remember before the days of digital video) documented two guys
adventures, setting off from Melbourne on 2 big off road bikes and then
ending up on a boat for a year travelling around the pacific and other oceans,
then transiting Africa in a little DAF car. Now DAF don't make cars any
more but my ambition to do this trip has been hanging around for the
past....well 25 - 30 years. Granted the circumnavigation has been
curtailed to an Atlantic circuit, however I am very much looking forward to
exploring the Caribbean for a while after we arrive. The Ocean passage
parts of this year were a great learning experience for me, but after 2 weeks at
sea, you look at it as a mountain to climb, you do it cos it's there. The
best bits are the land falls and the island hopping with a new cove and view
every evening (and if it is really great then you can stay another night),
jumping in for a swim, paying nothing to swing on your anchor, and taking out
the pin to decide where on the chart to go today (metaphorically here as I
imagine sticking pins in your chart plotter does not enhance the
performance). There is a lot to be said for bumming out for 6 months or a
year, many friends and colleagues have done it, either before or during
University or as a gap year in your career. If you get the chance and want
to do it. Pack it full!!
So what happens next.... lets see but we still have
300 Nm to run. After than HOME for Christmas, very much looking forward to
that.
Bye for now, more sentimental reflections almost
certainly forthcoming tomorrow.
Standing by on 77 and 16 this is Snark OUT for
now!
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