Dec.5 Brian 18:26.703N 031:29.308W
Erasmos
Ron Stubbington
Sat 5 Dec 2009 12:25
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Hello Everyone,
Ron is on watch, Kevin is catching some sleep, the
bread is rising before going into the oven. It has been a busy morning, 11:20
UTC right now. Voncouver and Victoria minus 8 hours, so 3:20 am
PST.
This morning after breakfast, (oatmeal and canned
tuna for the brave) I calculated our new Great Ciircle track to our
initial arrival point in the center of the channel separating St. Lucia and
Martinique. There was 1717 nm remaining to that waypoint and another 19 nm to
the dock in Rodney Bay. The dilema that we have as sailors is the direct
track to the initial arrival fix is 280 degrees magnetic. The wind has
been quite steady at 060 from the NE since we left the Cape Verde Islands. Our
point of sail to this wind has been 310 degrees magnetic, occasionally we can
get down to 290 magnetic. This makes our track made good further north that we
want and our daily mileage not directly at the initial arrival fix. We are
making good boat speed through the water and advancing to the west at a steady
rate. We will deal with the deviance from our desired track (280M) and our
actual track (310M) in either of two ways or a combination of the
two.
First as we are still quite far east we will
continue to West by the current point of sail. Looking at the North Atlantic
Pilot Chart (this chart shows the wind speed and direction for this sector
of ocean over a considerable period of time) for December, we can see the
average wind will begin to back to a more easterly direction for a higher
percentage of time. This will enable us to change our heading to one more
favourable direction to our destination. The second way to deal with the
the deviance is to sail as we are and when necessary to sail a corrector tack to
effect a correction to our northerly bias.
The noon day fix that you see on the header is
supplied to ARC control and plotted on our Mercator Projection Chart of the
North Atlantic Ocean, Southern Part. We are currently sailing over the Cape
Verde Abyssal Plain, 385 nm West of Porto Grande, Cape Verde Islands.
The other factor affecting our progress will be the North Equatorial Current
which varies from .5 increasing to 1.5 kts along our track, and on
our tail.
Last night for dinner we had fresh pan fried Mahi
Mahi on Curry Rice with chopped cabbage. Tonight it is chili as we clean
up the last of the bell peppers or Caspiams as Kevin calls them. The tangerines
and apples are doing well and we still have 25 to 30 firm tomatoes, lots
of onions and loads of garlic. Life is good aboard Erasmos.
Cheers
The crew of Erasmos.
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