A Back and Forth Battle

Position: 38,41.73S , 47,12.70W

Speed: 11 knots, Course: 27 deg

It has been a back and forth battle with all the boats during the past 24 hours. Each has his moment depending on where he is positioned and the shift of the moment. We have improved out position a bit passing ABN2 and moving into second. The over all picture is for very light wind all the way to the finish which could still be five days away even though we have less than 950 miles to go.

It is pretty easy sailing cruising along at 10-12 knots of speed. The water temperature took a big step up today jumping up to 22 C. So all the cold clothes are now stuffed into one of our old food bags to keep them tidy and smelling just in one area. But there is plenty of other smell to go around. Thanks to one competitors objection, we were not allowed to launder the sleeping bags in Wellington. We are really appreciating that now. It smells like a kennel again all the wet and musty now being “cooked” a bit. NICE!

The forecasts (GRIBS) are proving to be a bit less accurate lately so Jules and I have been spending about 4 hours out of every six just on weather together trying to figure out what is really going to happen. We are dealing with a decaying low pressure system right now and then heading for some decent southwest gradient along the coast over the next 24 hours. After that is looks bleak.

I am sitting in the nav station watching the radar and waiting for the 000 weather. We sure waiting for the wind to lift just a bit more then we will gybe onto port and head toward the shore. The game here is to try to get the biggest shift without getting so close to the center of the low that we loose too much wind. This is made trickier by the fact that this low pressure system is decaying and possibly spreading out. So we could gybe safe and it could spread over us. This is the game of the navigator and skipper-to figure this out better than the others. We watch the barometer,

satellite pictures, the wind the others have on the skeds as well as the GRIBS of course. We tacked a bit too early a few days ago when dealing with a high pressure ridge so we want to make sure we are in this one solidly.

Other than that, life is good. We have plenty of food and diesel so that is good news. If it takes forever to get there, so be it. We just want to win this leg and we are prepared to stay out here for how ever long it takes to get the job done.

PC

Pirates of the Caribbean