Date: 25/11/2009 14:49:52
Latitude: 23.3
Longitude: -24.02
Daily Log Number 3, ARC 2009, Wednesday 25th November. 1240 UTC Another day of steady progress aboard the good ship Northern Child, heading west towards the Caribbean. The route we follow and why we follow it is determined by the 'trade winds', so called from the old days of square riggers. Pioneered by Christopher Columbus, the only way the old sailing ships could sail with any efficiently with their square sails and yards was with the wind on the stern of the vessel; this is what happens in these latitudes at this time of year - the Easterly Trades Winds. The real genius of Columbus, however, was that he not only discovered this route, but also that it followed an annual pattern and that he was then able to follow the north side of the same high pressure system on his way back to Europe in the Spring: exactly what we still do today.
Our sail repair is progressing well with the watch on deck now having two people permanently employed on the job in strict rotation during the daylight hours! The fascination of seeing how to repair a sail at sea has quickly given way to the tedium of passing the needle through the cloth a few thousand times... Simon and pilot Steve are currently keeping out of mischief and fully entertained on the project and they tell me that progress is good with the end in sight. Little do they know that when we get to the end we are going to attach some sticky back sailcloth over the join and back sew all the way back down to the other end; oops, I had better go and explain. It would be too depressing to put it up and see it all come apart in the first gust! We hope to have it fully repaired and back up and flying this evening.
We are currently sailing downwind with our heavy weather jib set out to starboard on our spinnaker pole (the right hand side of the vessel) and a full mainsail set on the main boom to port. Called 'goosewinged' in English and known by many other names, it is an efficient rig downwind, but a bit slow in the absence of our large genoa. We spent the whole of Tuesday under spinnaker making good progress, and were just heading towards dark in 20 - 25 knots of breeze when we managed to get it tightly wound around the forestay. Finally managing to bring the sail down, we took it as a sign from the gods and finished with it for the night. if any disasters are going to happen, they will always occur at night in the pitch dark in the middle of a squall, and discretion was definitely the better part of valour.
Routine on board is now firmly established and with calm seas and moderate winds, livin' on board is easy. There's a song about that, isn't there? If not, I'm quittin' sailing and taking up song writing. Note I said song writing, not singing - I know exactly what all my friends think of my musical abilities, nonexistent. I seem to remember that I was sacked from prep school choir at age 8 after only a few rehearsals and despite several lessons which should suggest otherwise, the piano keyboard likewise at that age remained a goal too far. Never recovered of course, scarred for life. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, on board Northern Child in the middle of nowhere, again. When I say the ocean is calm I'm not talking duck pond calm. Everything is relative and the boat is rolling like a pig and when the helmsman steers off course, it kind of lurches and pitches at the same time, throwing everything and everyone about the boat. But it's all fun, you get used to it, and we are sailing downwind with the sun out so it's all good really.
Tuesdays sail repair photo showed Steve and Rebecka at work on the headsail. Rebecka hails from Stockholm, Sweden, and is an exotic blend of a Swedish Father and an Israeli Mother. She is a commercial property real estate consultant and is currently taking an extended break from work. Together with her fiancée, Frederik, an entrepreneur back home, she will be visiting Grenada and Tobago over Christmas and then moving up to New York for work over the New Year. Rebecka has sailed small cruising boats since about the age of 10 and has been thinking of crossing the Atlantic for 5 or 6 years. She relishes the personal challenge of crossing the ocean under sail, using a foreign language in everyday sailing terminology and is without a doubt the best sleeper on board!
We are currently 400 miles north of the Cape Verde Islands and heading west. On one gybe we are pointing at the Amazon basin and on the other are pointing at Florida - St Lucia is out there somewhere, I'm sure. Our 24 hour run has been a very respectable 191 miles run under sail but with only 186 sailed directly towards St Lucia, due to gybing angles. All's well on board. A bientot, Julian