We wake up properly around 0830. We've drifted about 17 miles eastwards over night which is quite convenient. George reviews the latest weather forecast on the tablet from his bunk. We've drifted about 17 miles eastwards over night which is quite convenient. It still sounds pretty blowy out there but there's unlikely to be any change over the next 24 hours so we decide to get going again. Under triple reefed main and storm jib with the wind on the quarter, we're back to making 6 knots or so on a course of roughly East, South East, more or less in the right direction.
In 24 hours or so it looks as if we will have to try and dodge both calm patches and stronger winds! But for now it's a case of carry on as we are.
With the repeated dowsings my gifted oilskins have endured on the foredeck during the course of the passage, they have given up any pretence of being waterproof and now act more like sheets of heavy duty blotting paper. Worse still my sea boots have also given up the unequal struggle and my feet squelch in their own individual bogs.
The oilskins hold a sentimental place on board having previously belonged to my dear deceased friend, Richard, struck down by throat cancer in 2017, and kindly gifted to me by his wife and also dear friend, Rayelle. However, they're no longer of any practical use and so I consign them temporarily to the bottom of the wet locker along with a pair of now saturated jeans. My boots I jam behind the toilet. I hope that one day they will eventually dry out!
Fortunately, Mick left his foul weather oilskins on board when he left the boat in St Martin in 2024 and I have therefore taken possession of them. At present at least, they are a lot more effective. I also dig out an old pair of common or garden wellington boots and use those. They've not warm, but at least they don't leak!
George makes banana custard for breakfast.
Yummy!
Toast and marmalade/Jam/Peanut Butter for Elevens' and Afternoon Tea!
Finish off George's Chilli Con carne for supper.
There wasn't much else to do once I had finished the excellent "River Thieves", other than worry about the weather, which I started doing a lot of after supper, whilst George was havining his pre-Watch nap.
The three low pressure systems along with their attendant areas of light winds are ganging up on us to create a complex and ever shifting obstacle course as we close the SW Ireland and the Western Approaches. To complicate matters further, there are some significant differences in the three forecast models we use; ECMWF, UKHMO, and GFS. The latter predicts an area of light winds will initially pass us to the south tomorrow and then the day after (Tuesday) turn north east and cut across our direct route to the Isles of Scilly. If we rely on that we should head south now to get underneath it. The other two models show it continuing eastwards below us and dissipates. If we believe those we should stay on an eastwards course to avoid it.
Whichever course we take we then face the prospect of further strong winds, quite possibly gales in the western approaches. If we guess right about the best way of getting there and the ECMWF model is accurate we'll face intervals of moderately strong winds gusting to gale force and lighter winds over the next few days and in the western approaches. If UKMO is right the winds will be full blown gales for periods. If GFS is right we face the prospect of a strong gale crossing our track as we cross the approach to the Celtic Sea (between SW Ireland and Lands End. UKHMO also shows a very strong gale following on from the North West, which would quite possibly catch us on its southern flank (provided we get far enough south, or if we don't, it might catch us full on).
That's the one we thought we might have to dodge by putting into SW Ireland but it now looks increasingly unlikely that we would get there in time and if we did aim for SW Ireland and didn't make it before the gale we would get clobbered in the middle of its strongest winds!
We review all this together when George gets up for his Watch at 2200 and agree that the least worst course of action now is to head as directly as possible towards the western approaches. If we get overtaken by calms we'll use the engine.
It's dark of course and we're on the port tack heading east with the NW wind on the quarter and the genoa poled out to port. We can only safely turn further away from the wind on this tack by about 15° (or risk an accidental gybe). We do that but are still not heading sufficiently far south. We need to gybe to make our desired course, but it's still very blowy and the seas are the biggest they've been; 5-6 metres we guess. I don't fancy rigging the pole on the foredeck with the boat rolling around in these conditions and in the dark. We agree to leave it at that until the morning, by when the conditions should have moderated and daylight has returned.
We go below and hit our beds. We operate a modified Watch. The man on-Watch can be in bed but should check everything every hour. I'm off Watch first but find it almost impossible to sleep because the storm jib sheet is making such an unholy din as it flaps in the wind shadow of the mainsail. I was too lazy to take it down earlier!
We swap over at 0200. I fix the racket by hardening up on the storm jib sheet, but as I later discover, poor George doesn't get any sleep.
We run 101 miles in a straight line, midnight to midnight including 8 hours hove to. Lands End is 629 miles off which means we are 100 miles closer than 24 hours ago.
Oh my lord. Banana custard. I was thinking I might quite enjoy the experience of being aboard Bonny until this point....
ReplyDeleteYour choice to push on directly for the western approaches seems to have been a really good decision!