Mid Atlantic update 17:07.6N 38:45.9W
Sonar
Ray
Sat 28 Nov 2009 19:31
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At 17:19:50 this afternoon Sonar crossed the
halfway point between our last landfall in Tenerife and our destination waypoint
in Grenada. That was a point 1376.7 miles from both points. Although this was a
spot on this enormous ocean that was no different from any other it was a
psychological turning point. It now seems we are heading towards rather
than leaving from somewhere. The on board track plotter now shows our
destination waypoint getting closer and our departure waypoint has fallen off
the right hand edge of the display screen. It feels like the next week or so is
now all downhill as we approach our destination rather than putting distance on
the clock. We are also about as far from the nearest land as we will get
- so it gets closer from now on.
Life on board has settled into a familiar daily
routine which involves a lot of sitting around the cockpit swapping yarns and
experiences and discussing opinions on just about any subject we can imagine.
John has taken the greatest interest in the food so he has been doing the
preparation and cooking of the communal main meal of the day we eat soon after
it gets dark in the evenings. John and Ted also like a good English type cooked
breakfast so John does bacon, eggs, tomato, toast mid morning while I stick to
my usual bowl of cereal roughage and join them with a bacon sandwich. Lunch
tends to be a snack of bread, cheese, ham or whatever is laying around in the
fridge. A regular treat for us all is to frequently have a mid Atlantic ice
cream. Such are the joys of having a boat with plenty of power available to keep
a fridge and a freezer running non-stop.
The sailing has been a dream. For at least a week
now we have had steady force 4-5 (10-20kts) occasionally up to 25kts of E
or ENE winds night and day. With just the 2 headsails set wing-on-wing and
no mainsail the boat is very easy to handle. The sails are easily furled or
unfurled as the wind strength and sea conditions dictate and the art has been to
try to get the course set just right so as to take the following big rollers
directly astern. This minimises the big cork-screwing rolling motion set up when
plunging down the face of an overtaking wave. Of course every wave is different
(we had a long discussion about whether that statement is true - and how you
prove it) so there are regular periods of a few minutes every now and again when
the stern of the boat is thrown off course by an odd wave and we end up going
sideways down a wave with the inevitable violent rolling that follows. It seems
a small price to pay for perfectly scripted conditions where we can effortlessly
make 140 miles per day. We have experimented with Big Bertha - the cruising
chute a few times when the wind has been light but although we could then charge
along at 7 or 8 kts we have not had the courage (or felt the need) to leave her
up overnight and risk dodgy manoeuvres in the dark on the front deck. So Bertha,
who relishes these conditions has largely stayed in her snuffing sleeve clipped
to the rail.
If these conditions continue (and the weather
forecasts say they will for at least another 5 days) then we should be very
close to our destination on the southern shore of Grenada in our projected
passage time of 21 days. We have a sweepstake running with the prize of a
crate of beer for whoever guesses the closest to our arrival date and
time. The finishing line has been agreed to be the crossing of longitude 61d
42.34'W (which is the longitude of Ted's house in Grenada). My entry in the
sweepstake is for us to arrive there at 12:00 hrs on the 21st day after
departure (12:00 local time on 8th December) - so I'm feeling smug and confident
at the moment. But this is real sailing - so who knows what we will encounter
over the next 10/11 days.
Ray
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