After two days of howling wind, crashing waves, and thundery squalls with horizontal rain, things finally seem to have calmed down and the sun is shining again. I guess I was overtaken by a cold front associated with a depression tracking across the Atlantic towards Europe, so I know just what’s going to be hitting London in a few days!
Although tiring it was an exhilarating experience as we were hurtling along at around 8 knots most of the time, with spray flying as the bow crashed through the waves. Every time we surfed down the back of a swell we topped 9 knots but for a long time the fastest I saw was 9.99, so I wondered if maybe it’s like in Star Trek where you can’t ever get to Warp 10 as you’d then be at every point in the universe at the same time.
However Tom Paris managed to break that barrier in Voyager, and sure enough Odyssey did too. Poor old Scotty would have hated it – “Cap’n, she cannae take any more” – but she did, and at one point hit 11.7, a record which I suspect may stand unbroken for a while. At that speed the whole boat vibrates and I just hang on for dear life, squeaking with excitement as we hit double figures.
After night fell I left Odyssey to her own devices, and with Monty at the helm we careered through the darkness. It was a bit scary as I couldn’t see a thing, and the radar screen was cluttered up with all the thundery squalls which surrounded us, but it did also pick out a couple of ships in the distance. It was reassuring to see that one clearly changed direction to overtake us before resuming it’s original course, so at least someone was keeping a lookout.
As I lay in my bunk I could hear the wind howling in the rigging and the water rushing past but although the motion was pretty violent and I was thrown about a fair bit I did manage to get some sleep. The great thing is that we’ve covered over 400 miles in the last 48 hours, making up for the lack of wind over the previous few days. We were pushed a bit to the south so I’m now heading north-east to pick up the Gulf Stream again.
The closest land is now Nova Scotia, some 400 miles to the north, but I don’t intend to stop anywhere until I get to France. The wind generator is keeping the batteries charged nicely and I’ve found that the fridge stays cold for at least 36 hours before I need to run the engine again so I should be able to conserve my remaining fuel supplies for several weeks yet.
Right now there’s a good stiff westerly breeze pushing us along at around 6 knots and the sun is shining nicely so I reckon I can lie back and top up my tan for the rest of the afternoon. It’s a hard life at sea 🙂