We have sorted
out magnetic from true north and have had fresh bread for
lunch.
As any compass
user knows, whether as a hill-walker used to the mists of the Yorkshire Moors or
Scottish Mountains, or as a sailor racing in the Solent or exploring the Channel
Islands or further afield, the needle on a magnetic compass points to Magnetic
North and not to True (or Grid) North, which is the North shown on most paper
maps. The Skipper has always remembered how to deal with difference between
these two by the mnemonic CADET Compass to True Add East. Others use Mag to
Grid get rid. However, the latter only works when the compass points to the west
of true north, which is the norm in UK, and not if the variation is eastwards.
Besides which, these days the UK variation is only a couple of degrees, so it
can normally be ignored. Out here, the Crew had been secretly puzzled. How come
we were sailing along a course of 275 degrees, which is just north of west, and
yet our Latitude has been slowly decreasing? Today, all was revealed. Cleones
GPS is elderly (not that elderly; there were no GPSs at all in elderly times. I
know. I was there Ed), but on it are different pages, one of which is called 'menu'. Selecting 'Navigation' takes you (surprisingly, perhaps) to the Nav
setup page, at the bottom of which it says Auto Mag W018. So rather than sailing
at 275 degrees as the compass and on-deck instruments indicate, by using the
Skipper's Mnemonic we can work out that we have actually been sailing at 257
degrees true, which is well south of due west. Phew. That explains it all. Even
the Skipper was thinking we might be going to miss St Lucia
completely.
We left Las
Palmas 13 days ago, and the hazards of sleeping under nets bulging with fresh
vegetables and eating real meat kept in the fridge or ersatz bread pre-sliced
and wrapped in plastic, are diminishing.
To an extent, especially to the one who does actually sleep under the veg
nets, this is comforting. But there is also the worrying thought that we might
be going to run out of food (or Beer. That would be much, much worse.- Ed)
before we reach St Lucia. But Francesca-the-mate has been very reassuring. We
have plenty of tinned food, and enough pasta to feed about half of Italy for a
week or so. We also have (millions of) gallons of ready salted water readily
available to cook it in. It has also been announced that there is a considerable
supply of Bread Flower and dried yeast. So the Skipper had to take the lead
AGAIN and demonstrate that there is something he can actually do on the domestic
side. Today we ate his first loaf of the voyage. In size, it was disappointingly
small, and it had a very well developed crust. Luckily the crew have strong
teeth as well as strong stomachs, and they pronounced The Loaf to be edible.
This is good news to three out of the four crew. The Elderly Baker (as he is now
known) is not quite sure that he agrees. Pictures of this achievement are
available, but for security reasons have not yet been
released.
The Weather
Forecast and Gribs indicate that the Trade Winds are not yet as well-developed
as we had hoped. For the next couple of days we have been promised easterly or
northeasterly winds of less than 17 knots. Such winds will not be quite enough
to keep Cleone fully powered up when running from them. However they will take
us in the right direction and the sunshine and company will make it a very
pleasant few days, even if our ETA will slip by a day or
so.
All on board are
well. We have heard that Storm Darragh has been giving you 60knots of wind and
driven rain. We are not bemoaning our lot.
With very best
wishes and love to you all,
James,
Francesca, Louisa and Kaya
Yacht
Cleone
At
sea
Position at
1200UTC on 07 Dec 2024:
N19deg46min
W41deg59min