Thursday September 16th
Position 54′ 52″N 005′ 03″ E
Course: 198′ T Speed: 11 Kts Days run: 180 miles
Wind: Direction 211’T Speed 18 Kts
Weather: Overcast and rain
News
The breeze continued to build yesterday afternoon and the barometer rose more than a millibar an hour showing how close together the isobars were. The weather info said we should expect 35kts which is manageable but by 14:00 yesterday it was blowing sustained 45-50 kts and gusting to 55 kts. We slowed the boat down and put extra straps over the tender and tightened up the existing ones as by now we were taking big waves over the bow. We tried to keep some speed on and continue moving forward as the waves built but that proved a futile effort. We would go over one wave and through the next and it was only a matter of time before something would break. So we slowed the boat to 3-4 knots with the engine running to power up the front of the wave faces at a slight angle. There was enough pressure from the “micro” main and staysail to press the boat into the back side of the waves as they passed and about all you could do was hang on. The North Sea waves built amazingly fast and would have been 20 footers by that time, so at the bottom of the trough you were looking at a forty foot face. Occasionally the waves would break right top but by random luck this rarely happened when we were making our way up the face. Although when it did happen they would go right over the house and we would have a foot of water at the wheelhouse back door. We couldn’t bear off to much as we still wanted to keep clear of the Jutland Banks as I was worried the shallower water would intensify the waves. After another 12 hours of 3-4 knots in the big breeze we were able to bear off a bit and by midnight there was 30-35kts, which by now was termed “light” by the crew. The weather forecast indicated the wind was going to back to the South West (on the nose again). While the weather was moderately cooperative we needed to start making our way South. The crew pushed to keep the speed up and it slowly climbed to 11kts by noon to cover as much ground as possible before the new breeze filled in.
John
