27:43N 64:45W Bermuda Triangle? Sargasso Sea? One big wide Ocean out there!!
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Tue 3 May 2011 06:32
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Hi Folks,
Time for the blog from the Dog Watch. It is
now 1:15 am and the toughest part of the night. Mike and I have swapped
watches and I now have from midnight until 5 am to amuse myself. Chris
will join me again so perhaps we can have a battleships rematch?
The weather, while still sunny has not been very
helpful to our progress, the stiff breeze from the East or South East has come
around to the North and taken a good dose of Viagra and is consequently much
stiffer. The seas, while not that large are short and steep and keep
stopping the boat so our average speed is very slow. We are progressing
under engine for the night at least since with less than 300 Nm to run tacking
will double the distance since we are unlikely according to the latest weather
forecast to get better winds later. We will sail during the day when the
opportunity arises as it is not much fun under engine (noisy mostly) and we may
actually have too little fuel to complete the journey if the headwinds
continue. This is no big issue since the idea is to use the sails but this
leg is proving less idyllic than hoped from a weather point of
view.
The boat is otherwise holding up well. Both
engine and generator are working fine with he alternator fixed in Tortola and
the initial generator issue being only low oil levels (just been serviced! not
expecting that). The only breakage we have had is the Vang where one of
blocks has given way due to over cranking, or possibly over cranking of the main
sheet under reef. We have discovered that it is not possible to sail the
boat on the wind with a reef in the main with the Bimini up so we have been
enjoying a bit more sun and wind than we would have liked. We will have to
look at the issue and see if the reef can be adjusted to take the boom
higher. We have a lack of long distance sailing experience with the Snark
Close hauled with most of the ARC being down wind sailing and where not we were
never headed as such. Such head winds in the med as we sailed against were
very light, or at night with a small screw so mostly we proceeded
under engine. A new learning experience for boat and skipper. As a
kid my favourite point of sail was healed over hard beating into the wind.
The reality of 24 hours of it (and then another 24 hours) on a large yacht is
somewhat more testing as we never had to prepare meals and take a shower while
we raced around various lakes and coastal waters in a 13ft dinghy. I
recall sailing with my father in Melbourne and we seemed to do much better with
him at the helm in light winds and me at the helm in strong winds. Something to
do with patience I expect. I guess at 42 years old my patience has grown
somewhat (not a lot I grant you) and we tend not to sail the boat with
water coming over the rail for reasons of safety and sanity so
far more reefing seems to take place these days than
before.
The blog takes a good deal longer to write than you
may think, every 2 or 3 minutes I stop typing put the computer down in a splash
free zone, let my night vision adjust and take a look around for shipping.
There was none but one has to make sure. Our fist night encounter with a
freighter shows that despite the size of the ocean and the lack of ships it is
very possible to get closer than you want to. Tonight though nothing so
far, though Mike did see a merchant vessel of some sort pop up over the horizon
for a little bit then disappear.
While we have not really gone into the Bermuda
Triangle more sailing around the edge of it, we have I believed passed through
an area known as the Sargasso sea. The details of this are in the cruising
guide which I hope Quentin is bringing with him to Bermuda. Rather than
useful quantities of fish we have been catching large quantities of useless sea
weed on our line. I guess this is Sargasso weed. We have not really
been seeing great blankets of it though. I guess this is the advantage of
the weather, the waves and wind rather break it up I imagine (there is a sunny
side to everything).
Before I close a thought on the wonders of modern
technology. Last trip on the ARC I had invested in an app for my iPhone as
a back up navigation system / GPS which was a mandatory requirement of the
ARC. Needless to say it did not work and we ended up borrowing a GPS from
someone for the duration. Now I am not sure if it is a software or
hardware update (iphone 4 now) but the mapping and GPS software I have now seems
to work perfectly. So in the event of a total systems failure I still have a
back up Sat Nav system for the boat to safely guide us home (along of course
with a set of pilot guides and paper charts which thankfully we have never had
to use in anger).
I will sign off for now. Wish us fair wind,
or if you have the talent some incantations would be nice. Remember
Southerly winds South, South East or South West would be best but at a pinch
Easterly or Westerly is fine, just nothing starting with an N.
Ben and the Crew of The Snark
bentlittle {CHANGE TO AT} btinternet {DOT} com thesnark {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com +44 777 070 4382 (Mobile) +88 1631589195 (Sat Phone) Follow our voyage at
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