Challenger 2 finds its way across the high pressure in the Atlantic and ask not how far we have to go, rather how far have we come…

Day 17 Saturday January 2018

50-55 Knots – that was last year!

Good Morning

Well there has been little or no change of any significance since our last mid-day report. We are still motoring through the high at between 7 – 8 knts. The sea state is glassy with a slight swell. The wind speed is for the most part 0knts however it did blow up to 3 – 4knts as the sun came up and there was a change in temperature. The crew are in high spirits and looking forward to reaching Falmouth, I don’t think they believe the stories Steve (WL) and I have been telling them about last year’s trip from the Azores which consisted of 50 – 55knts of wind for pretty much 5 days, oh well that’s Atlantic sailing for you.

After Alex departure all crew seemed to be converted to Herbal Tea at first … still going strong.
Not All.

Time and Tide

We have just received the latest GRIB file (wind predictions for the next 5 days). It is showing, quite bizarrely for January in the North Atlantic, a massive high pressure system that dominates the entire width of the Ocean reaching over a 1,000nm from the Azores to Lands End, our exact route. The consequence of this massive wind hole is that we have to motor across it, we are fortunate enough to be in a boat that has a 130 horsepower diesel engine and 1,140Ltrs of fuel, enough to take us to Falmouth. One of the so called benefits of motoring is that we have the ability to make some fairly accurate predictions of our ETA in Falmouth: Current Date & Time Sat 27th Jan 2018 17:00 UTC, distance to run 699nm, speed 8Knts = 3.64 days therefore we should be in around midday on Wednesday. This is what the Cargo ships and Tankers on our periphery are doing on an hourly basis, calculating and recalculating to ensure they make their slot on the dock to unload turn around and set off on the next measured schedule. The predictability of these schedules however becomes less accurate as we change from motoring to sailing. We are hoping for weather to help us sail at least the last 24 hours into Falmouth. When we put our sails up we step back, back to a more traditional approach to time. Time that is subject to the vagaries of Mother Nature, time that requires a different understanding.

A defining factor of Ocean Sailing

The relatively unknown and underrated, French Philosopher Henri Bergson theorised that time could be understood in two distinct and very different ways, the first being measured time of the type I have just illustrated and the second, time as duration. Time as duration Bergson asserted is more like being in time rather than travelling through time (measured time). So if we now start to think of our time at sea as duration rather than measured time our whole attitude changes. It is my experience that it is not a conscious decision to think in this way, it is something that happens organically. After a number of days staring at blue or as it has now become grey, being gently and hypnotically rocked by the Atlantic swell we start to lose track of time, or more specifically time is no longer tracked it becomes duration. We become part of time, part of the moment. For me it is this change that defines Ocean Sailing. We exist in an environment of almost complete sensory deprivation compared to our lives on land; an environment that is enclosed both within the confines of the boat and within the 8nm circle that is the limit of our view to the horizon and consequently within the confines of our new conception of time. We are removed from life as we have known it, removed from the world that we have constructed for ourselves back on land and removed from our passage through that world as a measured and calculated process. The result of all this blue sea is to smooth the edges of our lives, like glass fragments on a sandy beach. Meetings, deadlines and schedules have less urgency, social media becomes less important as we experience the moment, the authentic, rather than the superficial elements of experience that get posted to timelines. The intensity of everyday experience increases with our new found focus and our new attitude to time. So my happy shipmates put away your phones, stare at the blue and ask not how far we have to go, ask how far we have come.
Nick
Mate

More thoughts…

Iain Blair 2145 UTC, Saturday: high pressure still in charge, motoring, no wind, sea glassy calm, clear night, bright moonlight, all well, not cold. Everyone happy. Regards to all. IB

Tonight I asked Neil, our Skipper, if we had a thermometer on board. It turns out that measuring the temperature at sea is not a critical requirement, so I’ve been trying to come up with a number that seems to fit. At present my guess is 12°C: Tonight to say the conditions are mild and settled might be an understatement, the sea-state is G for Glassy, or P for Pond like. Comparing my expectations of what the sea mid-Atlantic would be like with what we’ve got is, well… as they say, be careful what you wish for.

Talking with Howard we both realise how different our notions of scale crossing the Atlantic, speaking for Howard I am aware that he is conscious of the immensity of this ocean; the huge depths over which we float (spot depths of 5000 metres or more are not difficult to pick out on our charts) and the vast distances in knotage and time. For me, this journey, so far, seems to have shrunk this mass of blue between the UK and the US, it’s no longer in my mind, the baron wilderness I expected it to be; less of the lonely, remote tract conjured up in my imagination.
As I write we are west of the northern tip of Spain by at least 2 or3 hundred miles, but also significantly, by the chart, north of it too – soon we’ll be parallel with Bordeaux and heading into the Bay of Biscay, and although it feels like we’re nearing home, it’s not over yet. Meanwhile we’ve been nearly basking on deck, virtually lulled to sleep by gentle swell and treated to a show of the very best in cloud design and sea imagery I’ve ever seen – bring it on…! Thank you North Atlantic.
Love to all I know at home, x Ben

Hey Lesley,
Well how can I possibly write a blog post to better what Nick has written today, and would I want to? So all I can do is to try and compliment it with some thoughts and ideas from one of my favourite writers instead, so from Douglas Adams:
“Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so”
And
Nick is “A real hoopy frood, who really knows where his towel is”

Catching boiling water….

But just when I thought there would be no content to write about on board, along comes bangers and mash. Giving us 2 things this evening, the first while spud bashing a particular humorous vegetable was found, an iconograph of which will be winging it’s way to the Ankh Morpork times, and secondly a new proverb was created, and it’s something like this: “Man who tries to catch boiling water will say naughty word”, the result of which is a slightly red hand (not mine) and a newly defrosted bag of vegetables of the non-humorous variety. During the creation of said meal I come down into the galley to help out with two of my watch mates struggling with a particularly difficult maths question, how many sausages for each person if we have 60 sausages and 14 crew… At least they can cook.
On a location front we are just about to leave Spain and Portugal to the south of us, another major milestone in the journey, that literally has had unexpected highs, on the weather front.
So fair well for today from the Largest North Atlantic Pub crawl,
Budgie

Posted by: First Class Sailing