Crew Blog

Wondering about the winds

27 October 2007

We set off from Salvador with our plan off heading down south and then catching a high pressure weather system which would take us all the way across the Southern Atlantic - simple! If only things turned out the way you planned them. However that’s impossible when you have to take account of the wind - it’s an amazingly fickle friend - and has been especially so over the last 24 hours.

Firstly, the high pressure system which we set off to ride across has passed through much quicker than we anticipated - so we may be heading off into a wind hole, or hopefully we can catch another system.

And secondly, the wind taking us South has dropped off and has been unpredictable into the bargain as well. At one point we had a wind shift of nearly 40 degrees, which caused us to gybe and wrap the spinnaker - JC was up the mast at the time so we nearly managed to wrap him in the spinnaker as well! Luckily it wasn’t a bad wrap at all, so we managed to recover and JC was brought safely down. When asked about his experience he said it was “like being cuddled by a big friendly cloud” - perhaps his days at sea are beginning to affect him.

We don’t get another weather file until tomorrow, so at the moment we’re not quite sure what we’re heading into. But we are still carrying on stubbornly south - albeit a bit slower than we hoped!

Mel