Monday, December 19, 2016

Askari Report 1200 UTC 19th December 2016

Position 13 50 N 51 53 W
Course 280 degrees
Speed 7.5 knots
Wind East North East 20-25 knots
Distance in last 24 hours 172 miles

The mood aboard is a lot lighter today; yes I managed to get a good night sleep, but also the wind and most importantly the sea has calmed a bit. I have to admit to getting a bit rattled yesterday the waves were just so steep and were breaking all around us, it wasn't so much scary (Askari was dealing with it fine) but just really unsettling for me as the forecast was for the peak waves the next day and we were still regularly seeing over 30 knots of wind which would create bigger seas.

There was one wave yesterday that was just huge and really steep. I had just gone into the cockpit and said to Andrew I thought things were calming a little, so I had opened the washboard to let some air through, when it appeared. Before I could do a thing it just grew and grew directly behind the stern of the boat, it was definitely more than 4 metres. Then I saw white foam tipping over the top of it and my heart leapt and I thought it was going to come down on top of us. However, it broke right on our stern sending Askari surfing along at an exciting 19 knots. The sails just backed a little, but she sat straight with Mick Fanning (autopilot) at the steering and then quickly brushed it off and carried on sailing, while I caught my breath. This was not fun! (A- yes it was) However, we reflected that it really was one of those 1 in 1000 waves and we were just unlucky.

Today the wind has eased a little and the sea is still big, however the interval of the waves has increased - that's the gap between them. A longer interval means it is much more like rolling hills than jagged mountains….. We still made good progress, despite slowing down quite a lot over night to make things easier. This morning we have given the cockpit a good clean as it was a bit salty and had a bacon and egg sandwich for breakie. The weather forecast is for 20-25knots for the next two days which is perfect, if it holds true.

We are now really hoping we will arrive on Thursday - it looks like Blue Roger, Milvina, Fenua and us will all arrive on the same day. In exciting developments, we have definitely been the fastest in the last few days. Yesterday we all exchange information on approaching the island and clearing in; we also got an email from Silver Lining who are in Barbados (thanks Neil and Gill). We will decide tomorrow if we will go north or south of the island, south is nearer, however there is a shallow patch we have to avoid if the sea is still pretty big. So we will get the latest weather forecast and decide.

We are getting very excited - about 447 miles to Barbados……

ps We loved getting the emails from both Mum n Dad's in the last 24 hours - very funny that both were concerned about the loss of Kath x x

pps there is more to the Kath story than Carolyn has reported. It involves Carolyn "releasing" her to the ocean only for her to be sadly drowned at sea. Carolyn's claiming she acted in kindness- my view is that it was some sort of female competition thing where only one would survive.

Squall line

Sunset


Green water

Water splashed near Andrew - not happy!

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

No comments:

Post a Comment