This morning was quite disheartning onboard, very little wind a strong front coming in 2 days and not making much progress. We once again decided to head straight for St Lucia (we backed south earlier to no avail) and handle the high winds when they arrive, if they arrive. All the boats are having a
tough time and 20 days will look good for crossing this year. On the net this morning, some boats are having to pull into Cape Verde to fill up on diesel. We still ok, have 3/4 tanks so just pushing along.
No fish today...all our love
20.02n 25.10w
For those of you who are not sailors, we should be sailing (under sail) in the "guaranteed" trade winds. In between bouts of sanity I have consulted the pilot charts. What these are, are the wind direction/speed/calms etc recorded by sailors since the beginning of time. Well close enough, you get the picture. Now if you look at November pilot charts you will see that 66% of the time the wind should be NE at 20 kts, North 18% East 15% and the other 1% NE, SE, S,W, NW. There is also a chance of 1 calm day (no wind day). These are fantastic figures and sailors have counted on these averages for centuries. Now the problem with averages is:
IT'S LIKE HAVING 1 FOOT IN A BUCKET OF ICE AT -45 THE OTHER FOOT IN A BUCKET
OF HOT WATER AT + 80. IT WONT BE VERY COMFORTABLE BUT ......THE AVERAGE IS A
VERY PLEASANT 35 DEGREES
So what's happened out here is a matter of survival, if you look on the ARC website the Average time of arrival in St Lucia (yes that word again) is late Dec/early Jan! The 1 calm day in November has happened, the wind has generally been from the N and E side but so light you can hardly sail it. So back to that word average, if we want to keep the stats going, it's got to blow about 100kts for the rest of this month (thats not a good thing by the way). From the weather forecast it looks like the wind speed will pick up to about 30kts, but from the SE which shares 1% of the time with 4 other
directions. Now the problem with this (not that anyone is complaining) that's the way we going!!!
Quite a few boats have pulled into...or going to pull into Cape Verde to get more diesel so they can make it across. Others like us are motoring only when we need power on 1 engine to try preserve fuel in case the winds don't come. Others are sitting and bobbing hence the ETA being January for a lot. Yes the racing boats took the high latitudes and seem to be doing ok, but in the trades its despair.
As far as we concerned the Race is over, its now a matter of balancing speed, diesel, direction and wind to get to St Lucia this year. We should arrive around the 12th of December, but that may be the glass half full!
All our everlasting (like this crossing) love
The good, the bad and the ugly
Neil Wincomb, don't read this or you will definitely send out a Mayday to coast guard saying Tim has lost it and is a danger to his crew
The good:
For once I am praising Vicki's over spend....luckily she catered enough food to get us to Australia next year, think we will need it on the crossing well done Vicki
The Bad:
I told everyone we should be there between 16 and 18 days...luckily Vicki over spent
The Bad:
I was so annoyed yesterday that I was going to abandon the crossing and wait in Cape Verde till the trade winds appear
The Good:
Vicki said no let's carry on it does not matter how long it takes (I think she means within reason)
The bad:
I'm fretting about the time to get their
The Good:
Vicki is saying enjoy the trip stop thinking about the destination
The Bad:
I'm looking at the forecast and the promise of wind on the nose in 2 day and trying to avoid it
The good:
Vicki is saying, just sail the wind you get
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH splat......Neil read this sent out a plane and shot me!
19.50n 26.42w
Who was that mad man typing on this keyboard last night?
Off course it's a race! Yes we now have wind and tracking along at a great pace. Even more comforting is most the cruising class went south and stayed east and are stuck in little wind, motoring while we sailing at 6-7 kts on the rumb line. We broke 2000 miles to go earlier today, so spirits are high as is the diesel.....but who needs that smelly substance.
The only problem we have is Vicki put way too much food on board weighing us down and taking a quarter of a knot of our boat speed.....typical women. We don't even need food, being a hunter gatherer, I caught a lovely 3 ft Dorado which we had for dinner tonight. There is even tons of left overs. Yes I've now joined the catch kill fillet and eat fish brigade. Ok still missing the cook aspect but who's perfect. Cal did his first full watch tonight, he is settling in well now he is used to the fact we at sea for a while. Jess as usual takes everything in her stride and was full of bounce all day.
So enjoying the ride at the moment, thanks for all the emails, we do love hearing from you.
20.39N 29.13W
Todate we were doing quite well in this race, we are now probably last in the Cat section, done about 30 miles in 24 hours. We went West trying to get the wind, for the last 30 hrs we have had 30 on the nose, sailing just with tiny head sail, going more north than west at 2kts. Any faster and the boat is pounding so hard I'm worried we will loose the rig, so going slow and hoping the move will pay off in the next 48. We tried motoring and that was worse, doing 1-2 kts with both engines. So may as well
sail slowly. The seas are really huge and in a mess waves hitting from all angles stopping the boat dead every 5 mins,so not good. Morale is ok (ish) Vicki and Christian doing well, I'm hitting some lows, probably lack of sleep.
Kids are fine they watching movies.
Wish us luck all our Love