Wednesday 6 December 2023
The Adventures of Tin Man
Andy Topp & Steve Arnold
Wed 6 Dec 2023 21:44
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14:51.47N
052:1.91W what three words :
circulation.redeeming.fabled
After sending the blog last night, and talking about how
the Atlantic had been reasonably kind to us, the rest of the crew and I looked
out behind us as the evening drew in to see some reasonably innocuous clouds
starting to change into enormous convective towers of doom signaling what we
feared would be a pretty nasty squally night. I feared I had jinxed everything
by speaking too soon but yet again, as we sat in the cockpit and watched a
parade of lightning storms march past on our port side around 5-10 miles away we
were spared the worst of it with just a sprinkling of rain from time to time.
Our current bearing to the wind is about as max as we can do downwind so our
trajectory is being nudged a bit too far north - we now sit around 14
degrees 51 minutes north whereas the top of St Lucia is 14 degrees 7
minutes (roughly 44 miles too far north).
However our distance to St Lucia is still 524 miles so
we should be able to easily rectify the 40 mile discrepancy without too much
additional time being added on to our journey. And although we are a bit too far
north it has served us well for avoiding all the lightning the last few nights.
With the wind shifting around and night now upon us we are going to leave the
sail configuration for tonight and then gibe in the morning to get further
south.
We have done a considerable amount of trigonometry over
the last few days to try and calculate the best possible angles of approach
given all the variables - it's a really good job there are people on board who
can remember all this stuff because my skills are definitely elsewhere. It does
all come flowing back to you though once you start! So, Mr Booth, when I was in
your maths class in 1993 and I scoffed when you told me I would need this one
day you were right - it just took 30 years and to be the middle of the Atlantic
for that to be the case!
I stayed up with Jooj for his solo watch between 7 and 9
last night as everyone else went to grab some much needed sleep ahead of their
night watches which started before mine (at 3am!). We sat and watched the big
black clouds forming behind us but above us we still had a clear night sky and
no moon so we took the opportunity to gaze at the night sky, like excited five
year olds, for as long as we could. We saw several shooting stars and the Hubble
Space Telescope as it made its way directly over us. We would have also seen the
International Space Station had the aforementioned black clouds not been in the
way. Sam and I have been waiting for days for the ISS's orbit to bring it above
the horizon so it was a bit annoying it was obscured.
I also saw something I cannot explain: I was looking at
the stars when I saw a small star like bright dot getting bigger and brighter
until it was significantly brighter than anything else in the sky - maybe three
or four times bigger and much brighter than the planets. It grew for about two
to three seconds and then it shrank back again and disappeared. What was odd
about it was that it was completely stationary. It could have been a shooting
star coming directly at me so I didn't see the streak across the sky you
normally see, or it could have been a shiny bit on a satellite catching the sun
and reflecting it down. I like to think it was a star exploding somewhere
millions of light years away but Sam laughed it me when I ran this
theory by him. I suppose we will never know what it was but the excitable
child in me will always conclude, if only to myself, that I had witnessed the
death of a star.
The last exciting thing from last night, post blog, was
the discovery that in fact we had not finished all the Haribo and that there was
one more packet lurking at the back of the snack cupboard. We are going to save
it for a special occasion. Last night's dessert was a Ryvita with nutella and
peanut butter on it. I think the Ryvita added a level of maturity and
sophistication to this dish that would have otherwise been missing. I don't
think Will was convinced but we do live on different planes of sophistication
and his is definitely considerably higher than mine!
Today started a bit cloudy and miserable but it soon
cleared up and the sun came out. The wind has dropped so our progress is also
not quite as strong as it was but with each passing day we become slightly more
certain that our arrival will be Sunday.
Today was occupied with the worlds newest country and
western song, Squall Country. I got straight to work this morning recording the
lead and backing vocals and making some finishing touches to the track. Whilst
I'm pleased with the result I will be returning to my law firm finance job when
I get back to London rather than waiting for the call from Nashville!
Just after lunch Jooj and I got to work story boarding
the accompanying music video and by 4pm we had the whole thing filmed, edited
and produced. Turns out you have plenty of time when you're sailing the
Atlantic! Probably the first country and western song to be written, recorded,
filmed, edited and produced in the mid Atlantic, its world premier will be
released online after we arrive in St Lucia this weekend!
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