Becalmed
May 12, 2014
Wow-
I haven’t been stuck in a flat calm like this for some time. Just glassy seas and cloudless skies as far as the eye can see. There seems to be some wind up at the masthead but no wind down here on deck.
We were becalmed much of last night but we were still making progress as we were in the Gulf Stream current that was dragging us in generally the right direction. The dolphins and sharks are surfacing around us.. probably also wondering why we are just hanging around, but we are out of that now and have no other helper.
The GRIB weather files certainly indicated a high pressure center in our path, but does show more wind than we ‘ve got- which is zero.
Pat has been hand steering for some time to try to keep the boat going and because the auto-pilot goes a bit crazy in these conditions and tries desperately to keep the boat on course as it wanders around, causing a lot of power to be consumed and the “off-course” alarm to go off constantly.
Our fellow competitors “Dragon” are to the west of us and “Pleiad” is in front of us now since we had the “re-start” at Cape Hatteras caused by the lack of wind. MacFarlane Racing seems to be further back and I’m not sure what’s going on with them.
I also thought our fifth boat “Flatline” was going to join us at some point but she is now listed as “retired” so I don’t know exactly what that means.
So today is one of those days at sea that requires patience and perseverance to not go nuts with frustration. We just have to keep the bow pointed in the right direction and hope for the best.
It is just so ironic that the wind has just shut off after such a windy and fast first half of the race from Charleston to Hatteras. We were making plans for our early arrival in NYC. Not so fast.
Here’s hoping your day is going better than ours.
joe
