Day 33
leeonsea
Lee Price
Sun 29 Jun 2008 17:26
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N42.52.09 W022.24.82
Wind 10kts Heading 060T
I said yesturday that I was 4 days out and had only
covered 300miles. Obviously, as your all very aware people, you'll have noticed
that I've been out for 5 days. This morning I desided to work out exactly how
i'm doing, my day runs from 10am as that is the time I left Horta. So I wasn't
really being decitful.
So, as of 10am this morning, 5 complete
days.
Actuall milage covered. 445nm
Millage from Horta. 351nm
Thats gives me a average of 89nm per day though
this is only 70nm if you take the direct route, which of course I can't. This
would be a lot worse but for the amount of motor sailing I've done. Same
quantity of fuel on board, half the distance. These may seem like small
differences but they are large % differences from what is 'average' and
therefore have a big impact on the time this'll take. More than once I've
counted out the food to make sure I can cope with the worse case. I can,
just.
Yesturday was the worse so far, as I mentioned the
wind (what there was of it) was in my desired direction of travel and my tacking
angle was about half the compass around it. With some motoring toward midnight
I managed 59nm.
According to my routing charts, Ocean currents
should have an eastery set to them this far north, but this is bunkum, they've
been south or south easterly since the Azores as you would expect them to be
down there, but here they should have swung by now and be helping me on my way,
going more easterly then northeasterly as I close the channel. As yet, they're
not. I should point out at this point that, rather confusingly, currents are
spoke of in the direction their going, an easterly set therefore should be
traveling east. Wind is the direcion it's blowing from, so a wind traveling west
is considered to be easterly, therefore an easterly set and a westerly wind are
going in the same direction. Why the accient marina came up with this we
can only speculate, but like most things in sailing it seems to be the opposite
of what modern man would consider comon sense.
I, out of shear bordem, listened in on Herb last
night. It's difficult to pick him up this far northeast but 'mo-mo' who must
have a big tall mast, was relaying his forcasts to the boats east of the Azores.
Sounds like I'm missing the bullet. To the South the Azores has a low pressure
system and a front passing today was suppose to give some lucky bugger some
35kts SW winds (thats Gale force and at the moment I sincerly mean 'lucky'). To
the North another boat heading for the Irish sea was being told to stand off at
the entrance to the channel till tuesday as a big low is thrashing Ireland with
upto storm force winds tomorrow. I also got half a message about a capsized
Yacht, will tune in again a little earlier tonight and see If there's any more
info on that. My thoughts turned imeadiatly to Daniel, the Austrain, who'd left,
against my judgement, in his little tub into the last nasty Low to hit the
Azores. Lets all hope it wasn't him and that whom ever it was got off to their
raft ok.
It's a queer feeling you get in your gut when you
hear of Yachts and, presumably, their crew lost at sea. Your reminded,
obviously, that it's of course always possibe that the same could happen to you,
quite easily, but it doesn't fill you full of fear, indeed, it reinforces your
comitment to continue sailing, like you owe it to them to carry on living
the 'dream'. Just one of those things that happens from time to time, and it's
sad but it makes you more determined to enjoy every minute of what your doing. I
get a simular feeling when I see a motorcycle accident, particularly if I'm on
mine at the time. I'm sure many people get a simular feeling when their climbing
mountings or sky diving or something. We have to keep doing it, to keep enjoying
it, other wise they died for nothing. In a way, thats what gets me about
all this health and safety buff, a few lives saved each year but a few million
others deprived of that game of conkers they were quite looking forward
to. It keeps us safe but sucks the life out of us at the same time, so we
just end up brain dead living lives that are meaningless. I'd like to think, If
I copped it sailing, that no one would strike up a campain to stop others doing
it. That they'd just be happy I'd comitted so much to doing something I
love.
BTW,so you don't worry, to permanently capsize a
Yacht is very difficult, you need to have a Keel failure really, ie, the Keel
drops off and upsets the fishes and the boat becomes top heavy with the mast and
falls over. Or you need to have a Catamarn that you we're sailing like a plonker
and had to have had so much sail up in too much blow that you managed to upset
their incredible low center of gravity. Either way, it's very hard to do and
very unfortunate.
The sea was glassy calm last night and
progress was slow against the current with no wind. Motoring, with this
calm sea, not even the main sail was flogging particularly. I worked out
that I could either make 18nm overnight with the engine running or I could shut
down, drift and sleep. I did the latter, got up once after 3hrs to see if some
wind had come up, it hadn't, went back to bed.
This morning, after breakfast (which is cerial with
water as the milk goes off too quick without a fridge) I set the Main and
Foresail against a beam blow, the wind veering still to the SE again. But the
motor had to go on too to make any progress above 2kts and the swell had picked
up enough to flog the Main violently again, not enjoyable.
But by this afternoon the engine was off, the
breeze was abaft the beam (love saying that ;o) and for the first time in six
days I had reached and maintained, however briefly, 5kts! Absolutly wonderful.
And in the right direction too. Didn't last long of course, about 3hrs, and
the wind veered still so that now i'm as as close to downwind as I can get
without a spinika. Now the sails flog everytime a particularly big bit of swell
comes across and rocks the boat as there is still to little wind to
press them. I think I should see a little deteriation in the weather,
thankfully, and a bit more wind. There's another low southwest of the big one
that's pushing into Ireland and I hope the Irish one will keep the other one a
bit further south and I can get a flick off the southern edge of it, that'd be
super. I will tune into Herb for only the fact that it's nice to hear people
about you and what's going on with them, plus it's something to do and adds a
little routeen.
Arh.
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