Can you believe it?
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 25 Nov 2009 04:35
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This morning at 0410 utc we are at position
16:28.15 N 035:00.91W. After studying everything available to me and taking all
factors into account we decided strategically to head south from Gran Canaria to
Cape Verdes and keep very disciplined in not turning west until we got down to
17 North as this appeared to be the northern edge of the NE trades. This was
very hard work and the run to Cape Verde was 760 miles directly which beacause
we were gybing down wind and with out a rig to take us deep down the wind we
sailed 1050 miles. This was frustrating but the prize of getting into solid NE
trade winds would be worth the effort and the extra two days we invested in this
- wouldn't it? You may recall from a few days ago that once we turned west we
had good NE winds for the first day and a half. We have been sailing
well getting as deep down wind as the rig and best VMG will allow us. We
have now clocked up 202, 230, 220 and 228in the last four daily runs. OK,
but would you be luddy lieve it? The wind for the past two days has been
directly from the EAST except that is, occasionally when we have been on our NW
gybe when it nips round to the SE just to smack our bottoms for thinking we
were clever! OK if we have to gybe directly down wind to get there then that is
what we will have to do. It is quite amusing because on one tack we are pointing
straight up the Amazon which is only 1200 miles away. On the other tack we are
pointing straight for New York. Whatever! The bottom line is that 18 days,
my median estimate of crossing time looks challenging, and my secretly held 15
day time is out the window now. I think I will have to come back and have
another go in the future. But first lets get to Antigua. From the Cape verdes we
set a Rhumb line to the south end of Antigua - or as we call it the Rum Line. If
we sail 200 miles per day we only make 140 miles (VMG) along this line. Of
course things could be worse the wind could stay directly East and could get
lighter (as is forecast) or worse still we could be headed by a westerly.
Highly unlikely at this latitude though we are monitoring a deepening tropical
wave WSW of us at 14 North. This guy needs careful watching as it is the first
one in the past three weeks I have seen deepening into
anything.
And in any event ther is no hurry to get there as
the food and craic aboard is excellent. We had apple cumble tonight with our
dinner sitting in the cockpit on a beautiful evening - even if we
were pointing straight up the Amazon. There has been some talk aboard by me
of starting a scrabble league so if I can muster the crew we will see if that is
feasible. In the meantime we can only sail with the wind we have and we will
endeavour to keep plugging in the 200 mile plus days.
Zig
Zag.
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