Day 14 update
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Sun 8 Dec 2013 21:23
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17:48.68N 41:54.10W
Climate change, don't talk to me about climate
change!
For the past 3 days we have been wallowing around in
light winds blowing from no particular direction when we should, by all rights,
have been creaming along in strong NE trade winds. There is no justice and
the crew has been struggling with this unforeseen delay in our progress.
Thoughts of rearranged flights, wives with no place to stay on Antigua have
fortunately been replaced this afternoon by what we will do when we
finally arrive and how we will celebrate, as we now have a good sailing wind.
The fact that it is blowing from the West, has not bothered us as we are
now making over 7 knots close hauled and, as I write, the wind appears to
be going round to the north and we may be able to ease sheets
soon.
Such a situation has been interesting as we have had to
start making decisions about fuel usage - do we run the engine at cruising speed
and make some progress and charge batteries at the same time or do we just run
the generator and charge batteries, which uses much less fuel. Then there is the
question of how much fuel we actually have (gauges not that accurate) and how
much fuel is used at cruising revs and generating power. We have some idea but
are we over or underestimating?
What we do know is that our hoped for predicted crossing
time of 18-20 days will certainly be longer as we still have over 1100
miles to go. Food is not a problem. The last of our fresh food is just about
finished and we have a number of planned meals left, but our final meals may
well see us eating some interesting combinations! Likewise water is OK thanks to
the watermaker and the skipper has even been insisting the crew have
showers on all days with an F in them. So we continue to be well fed (tonight's
delectable chilli cooked by the Gordon Ramsay of the oceans PQM), and
with much higher spirits than the last few days. We even still have fresh lemon
for the G and Ts.
Week 2 distance stats:
Mon 2nd 127nm
Tues 3rd 107nm
Wed 4th 129nm
Thurs 5th 110nm
Fri 6th
95.6nm
Sat
7th 61nm
Sun
8th 89nm
Total mileage so far: 1789nm
(Despite the excellent team we have, it has occurred to
me that crew selection for this adventure has fallen short in one vital field.
The selection of a primary aged child to take charge of IT and Comms would
probably have made these web updates far more reliable and certainly caused the
skipper much less grief!)
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