Weather or not to go which way

X86
Rich Carey
Fri 24 Nov 2017 11:00
If wondering if Rich Carey has gone nuts, heading south when the bulk of the fleet is already North West of us, the picture explains. Ref the winds we are all screwed, but the worst thing for yachts is not lack of, or adverse, winds, it's sea state. With head winds, the waves built up and you launch off them with a shuddering thump several times a minute. All those to our North west are experiencing stronger head winds and likely slightly bigger and more confused waves. During the next 36 hours we will add 10 degrees west every several hours, and slowly bend our way under the stronger winds, crossing slightly above the Cape Verde group of Islands. So is the thinking at the moment - recalculated every time we upload new weather. We're now using both engines to combat the smack on the schnozzle apparent wind of 15 knots (10 knots real). This is burning valuable fuel at an unacceptable rate, but it's exactly the same for everyone - nothing you can do about it. In fact it's likely not the same for everyone - the slab fronted and sided gin palace catamaran's (mainly Lagoons), with their significantly increased windage (over a Seawind), could be finding things a good bit more expensive in the fuel department.

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