Friday, November 4th

4th Day at Sea

Monitor Mania and a Swim

The wind increases and the engine is off.  Time to set up the Monitor wind vane. Baxter, Scott and I going swimming in the deep blue sea.

Chart

 

Marine Weather Discussion

OVER THE PAST DAY OR SO THE MODELS HAVE GENERALLY TRENDED WEAKER WITH THE N TO NE POST FRONTAL WINDS FORECAST TO SPREAD SOUTHWARD ACROSS THE NT2 WATERS FRI AND FRI NIGHT. HOWEVER STILL HAVE SLIGHTLY ABOVE AVERAGE FORECAST CONFIDENCE THAT WINDS WILL INCREASE TO GALE MAINLY ACROSS THE GULF STREAM OFFSHORE S OF HATTERAS CANYON. BASED ON THE MODEL TREND DID MAKE SOME ADJUSTMENTS TO THE PREVIOUS WIND GRIDS SO AREAS OF GALE ARE NOT AS EXPANSIVE ACROSS THESE SOUTHERN NT2 ZONES. TODAYS MODELS THEN CONTINUED TO SHOW LITTLE RUN TO RUN CONSISTENCY WITH WHERE UPPER LOW MAY CLOSE OFF E OF THE OFFSHORE WATERS LATE IN THE WEEKEND INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK. THE LATEST ECMWF AND UKMET ARE NOW WELL W OF THE GFS POSITION AND ALSO STRONGER THAN THE GFS. IN FACT THE 12Z UKMET ADVERTISES WINDS UP TO 45 KT ACROSS THE NERN OUTER NT2 WATERS. DID NOT MAKE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO THE WIND GRIDS IN THE MEDIUM RANGE... CHOOSING TO CONTINUE WITH THE GALES POSSIBLE ACROSS THE OUTER OFFSHORE ZONES ANZ905 ANZ910 AND ANZ920 MON/MON NIGHT.

 

Log

12a-3a. Skies mostly clear. Crew (M & Bx?) – nope, Bx & Sc had set genoa and shut off motor in pm. Came on watch to 12-17 kts apparent 60° off starboard. Great sailing 5-7.9 kts. Lots of AIS traffic. 2 Dawgs, Flash and Windsurf, and a stream of tankers & cargo ships heading north & south. Sure looks like a shipping lane. Bioluminescense trailing the boat. 1st shooting star. 

Morning. 

Came on deck to same sailing conditions. Hdg 166°M. Fair weather cumulus ahead. Lower stratus behind us. Kala takes a morning pee & then poop on deck ["Rollers on deck!"]. Great start to the day! Molly’s mom emailed boat positions. We’re moving to the front with our good wind. Morning project was to get Monitor operating. Brand new. Ran lines, wrong and then right. Installed vane, then swapped it out for larger vane. Fiddled and fussed. Over-thought it. Over-corrected it. And, then just let it alone and settle itself into a course. Wanders more than auto[pilot], but less than any of us humans on board. Sweet. Baxster will wait an hour to claim success. Scott and I are declaring now. 

Bx stuck his Go Pro over side for a look at the prop. We seemed to have lost some kts per rpm, and there was a new vibration in the powertrain at low rpms. There it was, with the video stilled, a line at the prop. Fairly benign conditions, so over the side we went, Bx, Scott & me. A short line, some netting, came off with two dives. Scott and I on shark watch. We climbed back aboard on the Monitor (Bertha). 

We threw a fender on a line overboard before we went into the water. The amazing blue we’d seen from aboard carried down forever, well 16,000 feet, viewed through dive masks. A moment to be remembered! Pm. Wind’s turned light.

 

Videos

Photos