38:56.6N 56:55.6W
Sula Sula III
Mark
Sat 24 Jun 2023 19:53
I always said I needed a steel boat for Blue Water sailing, hoping that I might bounce off any semi- submerged object we might encounter.....but not sure I want to test that....sitting here on 15 tons travelling at 7 knots I can only imagine what sort of "crumple zone" might be required to comply with health and safety requirements in modern yacht construction. As for what a sudden reduction of momentum to zero might do to the rig, I dread to think. Helpfully the US coastguard have a Berg advisory service available on line.... Will have to see if I have enough bites to access it.
The good news is that we have wind! At the moment 15 knots increasing to 18 by this evening (apparently) This means we might get back to clocking some miles again. Junior remains sceptical about travelling any further North; I tried to explain to him that the further North we go the shorter the distance we will need to travel to make the degrees East we need....but he maintains the falling temperature is a good enough reason to stay well South. I will call Will back shortly and see what Windy is saying.🤞🏼
Will confirms the advice from Windy is much the same as the models I am looking at......he is suggesting that we head up to 48° North....that would mean 5 or 6 days and more importantly nights in the "Berghouse". The European model advocates sticking to the Rhum Line ( which incidentally still takes us through the Ice zone): I have always been empathetic to European directives so discretion etc etc I think we will go with that. Yes it might mean we are trapped in the Blue Abyss for weeks, but I am Berg averse and Junior with no boots nor decent oilies will be more of an asset in more temporate climes.