Day 4 -- Jibe ho!
25:43.85N 28:06.91W We have completed 4 days since the official start…818 miles, averaging 205 miles per day….and 1966 miles to go! We jibed (made a turn to the left shifting the wind to the port side from the starboard side) just after our position plot 24 hours ago, and we are now sailing on a port tack, broad reach, with the wind coming over the port quarter, flying main and genoa. Scott, our master tactician, is pictured checking the rigging after the Jibe…the rest of us are enjoying the best seats in the house back aft…with “Otto” at the helm! Winds are generally about 18-20, with a speed of about 9 knots. Eric now holds the record for Arbella, as he hit 14.4 knots through the water with a wind gust of 36 knots (16.1 knots over ground, with some sea carry). We now generally roll about 10-15 degrees, with only an occasional 30 degrees…just to remind us to keep our gear properly secured! We are on a course of 242 degrees, with a bearing to St. Lucia of 266 degrees…we are just where, by our strategy, we want to be…we are expecting the wind to veer such that we are advantaged against the rest of the fleet and we move even faster…we’ll see! When winds get lighter, our tactician is ready to fly the kite…but at these wind gust conditions we could blow it out, so we wait patiently! Cap is keeping the crew very well fed, even if it is still “meals in a bowl” due to the rolling! And the sunset again last night was beautiful…”red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning”…we had a “red sky”…! Upcoming blog topics: How do you provision for 5 guys for 3-4 weeks at sea….and, some History of the Atlantic Ocean…with a teaser on the latter…The earth is just over 2 billion years old, the Atlantic Ocean is 180 million years old….both are in “middle age” …. The Atlantic Ocean will cease to exist in 190 million years when the Americas and Africa join together…and the earth will likely cease to exist in a little over 2 billion more years….and most humbling, man will see a total period of existence on earth of some 10’s of thousands of years… This morning, as I plotted our position on our paper chart of the Atlantic Ocean-Southern Section, the reality of our passage hit home….everyone aboard has done many ocean passages (I have done about a dozen”, the rest of the crew have done many, many more), generally single digit days in length. For the first few days we were just “getting in passage mode” , but looking at where we are, and where we are going, was humbling and brought home the unique aspects of this passage….crossing this vast body of water without much recourse for assistance, yet quite confident about our crew, boat, and preparations…it IS a big ocean! Tomorrow….Provisioning for the Crossing! Mike |