Sunday, June 19. 2200.
Under the same sail configuration (code zero, main, mizzen) sailing was a breeze under moderate northerlies allowing us to reach across the wind. We are finding that our access to outside data is minimal. The data downloads via the sat phone are aborted by the Expedition race strategy program with time our errors nearly every time I use it. Using the Apple computer, I am consistently able to access email and grib (gridded binary) files to evaluate and predict wind but unfortunately, Expedition is unable to read these files, although it could do so previously. To compound matters, the grib file reader on the Apple no longer works (it did last month) so despite successfully downloading the files, they are not accessible on either computer. Frustrating. Beyond frustrating- way beyond.
Besides depriving us of data for strategic decisions, the race committee at the captains meeting on Thursday scared the hell out of us predicting strong winds and violent seas brought to us by a totally unpredictable low pressure ring. They have also been sending Commanders weather predictions every morning in narrative form and we are told that another very local, very strong low lies across our path with predicted winds of over 40 knots and in the Gulf Stream, waves with a very short periodicity of about 12 feet. With all this scaring the fleet, a number of boats have dropped out.
The nice sailing came to an abrupt halt at nightfall. The winds fell zero, the sails were making a terrible noise and we finally lowered the main sail to allow better use of he spinnaker unimpeded by a wind shadow from the main sail. Eventually, we doused the spinnaker too: we could not keep air in it.
We bobbed around all Saturday night, directionless and motionless except for a slight positive current.
This morning, the misery ended. Beautiful clear day with a decent breeze from the NE to east: winds of 10 to 18 knots and we carried main and mizzen plus the asymmetric spinnaker and the new mizzen staysail that gave us enormous power.
Under this rig, we got as close as 6 miles to Moonracer. I talked to Mike Hudner for a few minutes and we exchanged Happy Father's Day greetings.
Our strategy today has been to try get the west side of the intense low pressure zone with the idea that we would have more favorable winds and perhaps slightly less nasty winds. Also, we hoped to use the same strategy to get the west, or favorable direction of current in the cold eddy southwest of the Gulf Stream. But this takes us quite a bit west of the rhumb line and as far as we can tell from AIS, we are going there alone.
The wind picked up through the day until we took down both the mizzen stay sail and spinnaker. Whisper had become far overpowered by the wind/sail combination. The autopilot could not cope and we were making aggressive swings of direction between wind angles of 90 to nearly 180 degrees on port tack. This all happened as we were headed for out planned entry point in the Gulf Stream calculated such that we would exit the stream at the proper point to pick up the back side of the low.
Rather abruptly, the water temperature rose from the low 60's to 82 degrees F. and we were in the Gulf Stream 55 miles too early based on the predicted course. Adverse current of 4 knots in the ENE direction antagonized our intended SE course and we headed up on port tack under jib, main, and mizzen to cut more directly across the stream. We had good speed, winds of close to 20: we were fat.
The dreaded high seas in the Gulf Stream never materialized; the 12 foot ferocious waves were a mannerly 6 feet and pretty as we watched the reflection of the falling sun in the uneven sea. We left the stream after only 4 hours in, and about 20 nm.
After dinner of mussles and pasta, things started to fall apart again. The winds became erratic and light, but the seas now were minimally heaped up. Where are the predicted winds of the low pressure of 40 knots? For that matter, where is the low? The barometer at 30.04 in. has not begun to fall. So far, as we close in on midnight, nothing predicted has occurred.
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