Rollin down the track!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 7 Apr 2010 17:44
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April 7th 1014 Local Time 1714 UTC
02:57.56S 096:34.45W
I can hear the train a'comin, it's rollin down the
track ....... choo choo!
We're charging on down the track straight to the
Marquesas at the moment. We are sailing in about 15 knots of wind and we are
able to lay our course and we are doing about 9 knots. All white sails, no
poles, no slamming, no goosewinging - and why? The wind angle is being very kind
to us at about 115 - 120degrees on port.
Our strategy in this ocean after our long fruitless
dive south in the atlantic has been to motor sail directly for Marquesas on the
Rhumb line for the first few days to get through the very light forecast
winds. Also anytime we use the engine we have decided initially to point
and squirt at the Marquesas. However we are about 400 miles out and we have used
the engine only 16 hours. We have fuel for 150 hours more and that is about 1400
miles - but fuel is expensive and engines are noisy and smelly and sailing is
challenging. So we will be sailing, sailing sailing.
"Conventional wisdom" says to go south to at least
4degrees but maybe as far as 10degrees to
find the trades then turn to the Marquesas, but we held the line and have
allowed ourselves to make southing while staying on the course. The other boats
round about us have gone south to find the wind, but that means when you do turn
to Marquesas you have to go much deeper down wind and we would prefer not to
have to do that.
So to paraphrase Burns' Selkirk Grace
but we hae wind, an we can sail so let the
Lord be thankit!
All that is of course for now, and the one thing
certain about the wind (like good fortune - watch this space) is that it WILL
change but we are happy for now and in fact I am about to go an deck and
turn 10 degrees UPwind and sheet in so we can see some double figures on our
SOG. As our Antiguan taxi driver always said - YABBA YABBA DOOOO!
No fish caught but about a dozen small squid on
deck, if they are there tomorrow I am going to eat them for lunch. We
had no flying fish this morning becuase the Red Footed Boobies caught
them all. The fly along beside us every night and while we enjoy the new sky of
the southern hemisphere (the plough is still just visible on the horizon) the
Boobies swoop down on the flying fish as they are scared into flight by the
trundling of Rhiann Marie on the Marquesas
track.
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