How long is a piece of string
The Adventures of Allegria & Crew
Peter Lansdale
Fri 16 Jan 2026 14:11
171 miles in the last 24 hours
I've chosen 'how long is a piece of string' as the title of this blog although it could just as well have been 'the day we got to half way to Antigua' They are both equally valid titles because they both involve long and convoluted discussion to get to the answer. I'll try give give you some explanation of the last sentence.
The shortest distance from Lanzarote to Antigua is something like 2700 miles so you might think that when we are 1350 miles away we will be half way there. Just to be clear this distance is not a straight line, as in 'how the crow flies', it is a great circle as afficianados will understand. Far too complicated for the skipper, with only a limited understanding himself, to explain. Luckily our discussions on board did not include the route the crow took. For your information we are still about 1600 miles, or 1583 miles on the great circle, from Antigua.
The above is one way of establishing the half way point but we thought it might be interesting to use of westing. Lanzarote is at about 14 degrees west and Antigua at 61 degrees west, that's 45 degrees of longitude. Therefore when we have sailed 22 and a half degrees west to 36 and a half we could say we are half way. We are 34 degrees west at the moment, nearly there.
In his wisdom the skipper chose a route which involved placing waypoints (WP) at carefully chosen and logical, to him, points in the Atlantic for us to sail to. They appeared to be well placed when we set off, all for very good reasons such as 'go south until the butter melts and then turn right'. This route was 3160 miles from Lanzarote to Antigua. Once we are 1580 miles away we will be half way. Of course this does not involve a great circle or an as the crow flies, it means we sail along 2 sides of a triangle. If you weren't lost already you will be now but I'm hoping 1 or 2 readers will stick with me. Think about the triangle and as we approach a WP we can ignore it and cut the corner and as if by magic we have had a great leap forward. Ignore the WP and sail direct to the next one and Antigua immediately becomes nearer. A Great Leap Forward as in the days of Mao. Just for the avoidance of doubt, and in case you are getting worried about the skipper's sanity, we don't leap anywhere.
At least the sun has just come out. Peter.