Today: It’s Party time!; Setting a new speed record; Lets do the time warp again...; Beginnings and Endings;
Greetings from the content crew on Libeccio, we hope that the Monday morning blues were not too bad and that you somehow managed not to hit the snooze button so many times that you missed your train into work, or didn’t get the kids ready for school on time, or missed your class or .... hey, its not like yo-- u didn’t know it was coming.
So, how was our day you ask? That’s very nice of you to enquire. The best way to answer is to say that, for the second time since we left Las Palmas, we were popping the tops on a few beer (well, 4 to be exact, one for each of us)...its party time once again. Why you ask? That’s very nice of you to ask. Gosh, you are a very polite person. We are celebrating the fact that we TURNED RIGHT! Now, to those of you that are new to the blog you are not doubt saying, “Why, yes I am a very polite person.” but probably more likely, “Why is turning right such a big deal”. For the more faithful readers, they know that if we are turning right, it is because we are making the turn into our final course to reach St. Lucia. “But, wait. Didn’t you say that you were going to TURN RIGHT” in 2- 3 days more?”. Well, not only are you very polite, but, you also have a very good memory. Yes, we were going to turn right once we reached a place described as 14 North, 50 West... “So, why did you turn so much earlier” you ask in a very polite tone. We turned earlier because the weather forecasts for the coming days have changed so that the rain/squalls and lighter winds will not be coming as far south as earlier expected and so we don’t have to go as far south as we had planned on going. Result. So, we have had a very good Monday morning and even better Monday night with a cool beer along with our dinner.
Somewhat related, you will be pleased that we set a new speed record on Libeccio. Lets face it, weighing in at a modest (?) 16+ tonnes it will take a lot of wind and a lot of sail for Libeccio to be considered anything of a speed machine. She quite likes cruising along between 6.5 and 8.5 knots in winds no stronger that 17 – 20 knots. So, how did we set a new speed record today? Why so many questions all of a sudden? Maybe you are not so polite after all. We set the new speed record of about 40 knots in distance in about 15 mins--- pretty spectacular- approx 160 kn per hour—incredible for a yacht. The reason for the new speed record was that, after we TURNED RIGHT, the Distance to Destination (DTD) shortened by, you guessed it, 40 nautical miles. OK, so not quite a speed record, but, we are that much closer which equates to about 7 hours shorter journey.
We had passed another landmark during the night where we had crossed into the “less than 1000 nm to go” category— meaning that we have completed approx 2/3 of the trip. With the change in course and the miles over night we are now about 850nm from St Lucia. For those of you that have submitted your estimated time of arrival, we are allowing one more updated guess to be made considering the change in course that we made today. Please send us a note to
[email protected] .
Once we did TURN RIGHT, a couple things changed for us. Firstly, the wind which is coming from a little south of directly East is more directly behind the boat. With Izzy still flying strong, this is not quite as fast a point of sail for us and not as stable because the sail tends to swing from side to side a bit more if we have the wind behind us. The second thing that changed is that the dominant wave is also more directly behind us. This is a good thing because, in the past when the wave (now averaging 2 meters high) picks up the boat and we surf down the face, because we are surfing at an angle, Libeccio changes her direction and tries to surf down the face of the wave in a straight line- the autopilot doesn’t like this and so steers us back up into the wave.. creating an S pattern along the wave fronts. (Make sense?) It also meant that we were likely to run into the next wave and lose speed/momentum as a result. Now with the dominant wave behind us, the wave will pick up our stern and lift us up to surf straight down the face of the wave, Libeccio accelerates and keeps going with out trying to turn or run sideways into the next wave. This way we keep our momentum and hopefully will carry our speed better. Having said all that, Mrs Rush was heard to exclaim this afternoon during her watch, “I hate this tack!” It is quite a shock to hear this from Jane as she is one of the most easy going people you would meet. What she didn’t like is the sail tending to swing from side to side- it is a little worrying at times. So, she made a slight change to our course which meant that the sail will be more to the Port (remember our little tool to tell if it is our left or right?) which means that it won’t swing as much. The final thing that changed, we hope, is that the ride will be less bouncy (hmm not sure about that one) and quiet as we are not running into the waves in front of us—we’ll find about that later. For now, Peace and Harmony have once again fallen upon the good ship Libeccio.
Hey, we just hit 8.4 knots—at this rate we’ll get in tomorrow—ok, just kidding. But it does demonstrate a kind of mental math that each of us does through out the day. If you are sitting at the helm you have all the instrumentation in front of you to monitor our speed. If you are in the saloon/cockpit/lanai there is an ipad sitting on the kitchen counter that acts as our back up navigation and on it you can see the speed. So as you walk by, you take notice of the speed- so say 6 knots and calculate that we would cover 144 nm in 24 hours.. with 850 nm to go, that means about 6 days...hmm, not bad. Later you walk by and it is 5 knots, you become less happy as it would then take us 7 days...and so on.
One of the more actively debated topics on the boat has been how we are going to deal with the 4 hour time difference between Las Palmas and St Lucia. We have a great deal of flexibility as we run the boat on, funny enough, “boat time” so we can make it any time we want to. There are broadly two schools of thought: Cold turkey- keep the clocks on Las Palmas time until arrival and then make the change all at one time. It works when you fly, why not when you sail?; The second is to make the changes gradually while you make the crossing so that you do not have a major adjustment to go through. There are practical issues as well- if you don’t change the time, then by the time you get to St Lucia, the boat time will be 11:30 and it will only just be sunrise; if you do change the time, then how are you going to work it into the watch pattern. So, you can imagine that given the amount of years in post secondary education when combined with bags of free time, we had some very creative solutions suggested. In the end, it was decided that we would make the changes gradually during the crossing and that the extra hours would be shared equally among us with one hour changes spread over 4 days, but, not too close together. Crisis averted, we will now not suffer jet lag from a boat trip (?).
From the culinary corner tonight we have Maestro Mike stepping up to the cutting board and preparing his signature dish (and not one from the Australian Womens Weekly cook book), an original and not offered anywhere else except Chez Libeccio and Chateau Clare in Sevenoaks—it is, of course his Paella a la Rockhampton. For those of you unfamiliar with Rockhampton, lets just say that it is exclusive area that only the select few have visited. Into the rice, the Chef has added salmon, ham, shrimp, peas, celery, carrots and eggs. Thanks Chef!
We leave you on a slightly less frivolous note. So, take a deep breath, assume the lotus position, repeat your mantra few times and listen to the distant bell toll 15 times.....zzzzzzz, ,oops, sorry , must have nodded off.
We have shared with you our most disliked watch, but, wanted to let you know why the 19:00 – 22:00 shift and its partner the following morning of 07:00 – 11:00 were our favourites. It is because we get to witness two beginnings and two endings- see, pretty zen like stuff. As we start the watch, the sun is slowly setting to the west. On evenings like last night we were treated to a classic red horizon as the sun dipped further down- noting an end to another beautiful day. At the same time and before the sun is lost from sight, rises the moon. Currently, at its fullest of the trip, its arrival is heralded by a different coloured glow from the West- although hidden by the clouds its colours are more white. As it gets darker, the sun finally drops out of sight and the moon is now full and on the horizon. At the helm, darkness surrounds the boat, the instruments are glowing in front of you and the moon is refected on the ocean, as far as you can see to the east, amazing and peaceful, particularly as we are under sail and you hear only the boat cutting through the waves.
The following morning, when you get up for your next watch at 07:00, you have the opportunity to relive the whole process, but, in reverse. It is still dark at 07:00 and its as if you had not left the helm- it is dark around the boat, the instruments continue to glow and the moon, although lower in the sky and is lighting up the path that your boat is taking—literally, with its reflection on the water as far as you can see—this time to the west. As the morning progresses, the sun starts to make its presence felt- the glow on the horizon is much larger than the moon’s just 12 hours earlier and it quickly lights up the sky. Once again , you have both moon and sun in the sky at the same time this time.
So, two beginnings and two endings..
We hope that you have had a great Monday,
Best wishes,
The Crew of Libeccio