After three days of incredible sailing, today (Wed.) was rather anticlimatic. We have been motoring all day since 0700, doing about 6k in a southerly direction. But we have used the time well. Each of the crew has had a chance for some 'quiet time' to collect thoughts. Sailing across a vast ocean provides exactly this opportunity -- an opportunity to get to know yourself better; to figure out what makes you tick, and why. So the change of pace has been quite refreshing.
Can we go sailing now?!!! :-) After motoring the past 10 hours, I have done all of the soul searching I need to do for now! I am ready to set the kite again and slide on down to St. Lucia!
But before we can get to St. Lucia, we gotta get south. That's because there is a huge hole developing immediately to the west of us. This has been forecast since before the start. We have opted to try to slide around it by hugging the African coast, and try to pick up a forecast offshore breeze to get us south of the hole before we turn west on the easterly tradewinds. This means that we have to sail extra miles. It is a gamble -- we are the furthest south and furthest east of our entire class, and nearly all of the division. So we are either gonna come out of this looking like geniuses, or like dummies. Only time will tell!
The next couple of days are critical. Nearly the rest of the fleet is planning (I think) to motor through the hole in a southwesterly direction to get below it and to also work westward. We are hoping we can pick up the trades early enough to make up for the extra 2-300 miles we may have to sail. But with the wind dead pretty much across the entire course where boats are now, we are all motoring, I suspect.
My good friend and tactician, Jeff Janders, has been providing some shoreside support. We are grateful for that as it provides a different perspective than we can get. We are in agreement on the strategy. Now it is just implementing it and see how it works out. I am pretty
sure that if the ARC did NOT allow motoring, that this would be the right call. But the ARC does allow motoring. We all just have to keep track of the hours so the ARC staff can assess penalties relative to the number hours of spent motoring.
Our strategy is to reduce our hours of motoring, and by sailing a slightly longer course, hopefully make it all up. But we shall see. We shall see.