One Man, One Boat, 4000 Miles!!!

Tropic 4 Cancer Trans Atlantic challenge is an expedition to sail single-handed 4000 miles across the Atlantic, from the western seaboard of Africa to Antigua. The route follows a defined course along the Tropic of Cancer, which is a circle of latitude running around the Earth at approximately 23 degrees north, and which marks the most northerly position at which the sun may appear directly overhead. Find Out More

Day 21 – Kind of Downhill From Here?!?!

Posted on November 23rd, 2013

HaskapaI’ve now passed the halfway point on the transatlantic leg of my voyage!!! So it’s sort of downhill from here to Antigua!!! Carrying on the comparison with the working week, whilst you enjoy your weekends, I’m now at Wednesday lunchtime!!

I’ve always had a soft spot for Wednesday afternoons, which dates back to my schooldays – Wednesday afternoon meant sports!! At this time of year, that would involve a rugby match on some windswept, poorly drained, muddy patch of ground somewhere in the south east of England. That made it infinitely preferable to any other weekday afternoon, which contained horrors like double Maths!

When I was in the Third Form, the only escape from the boredom was to hope that our Maths Master had treated his two dogs to a lunch of suet. The resulting toxic emissions usually resulted in a need to evacuate the classroom at some point!

Some relief could also be gained by getting him, as an ex-military man, to digress into the topic of warfare. On one such occasion, he’d strayed off the curriculum and was going full pelt on the subject of military innovations benefiting civilian life, using the example of the defensive weapon of barbed wire benefitting farming. Noticing that one boy had nodded off, he woke the poor chap up by asking what weapon had helped farmers control cattle. The boy, incorrectly putting two and two together (it was maths!!), but making an educated guess, came up with the classic answer: ‘….err, was it the machine gun, sir?’! Still makes me chuckle now!! Countryfile would attract a very different audience!

Mind you, even maths was better than double French!! If you’d overdone it with a second helping of article roll at school lunch, and tried to indulge in a bit of après repas reverie, inevitably you would be awoken by an explosion of chalk dust and noise, as the well aimed shoulder launched, rocket propelled board rubber impacted on the desk in front of you!!!

Anyway, some 30 years later, I’m spending this ‘Wednesday afternoon’ on a windswept and poorly drained patch of ocean! The poorly drained bit is fine – it would be a bloody long walk from here!!

The progress to the halfway point has been slow, mainly because the weather in the eastern Atlantic has been very confused. The trade winds are yet to properly become established, and the result was very low daily mileages. As previously mentioned, I’m also only using about 50% of the Haskapa’s potential, mainly because I do not want to over-stress her. I’m a long way from anywhere, and breakages would not be good!!!

I’m hoping that the western half of the Atlantic will see slightly better organised weather, but already I’m facing a couple of days where the winds become light and variable. The forecast for next week is a little better, but as I mentioned yesterday, entirely dependent on me getting as far west as possible now to escape light winds in the east.

In other news, the ‘Mo’ is growing again!!! Not sure why or how!! Still no other marine life bar the flying fish, but thankfully no rubbish either.

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Today’s thank you goes to; Helen & Steve Gaskell & Family, Ed & Caroline Butler & Family, Jim & Siobhan Mainstone & Family, Fay, John  & Coco Cox and Alasdair MacLeod. Thank you so much for all your kind donations.