DAY 7 Weather Update
February 15, Day 7 | ‘Bonus’ Weather Blog — Balancing Between Highs and Lows
Sailing across an ocean normally requires a bit of slaloming; you’re likely to abandon your great circle route searching for more favorable conditions. This specific passage with ADRIENNE from Sint Maarten to the Canaries is no different. This is NOT a route where we can simply follow the great circle route. While drawing a straight line from Sint Maarten to Gran Canaria, we end up with two very different weather patterns on either side of this line.
To the south, we find the NE’ly trade winds. This is where you want to be, sailing from the Canaries to the Caribbean to enjoy a nice downwind passage. ADRIENNE is heading the opposite direction. As much as I love upwind sailing, I’m afraid that three weeks of it, in 25+ knots of wind, wouldn’t necessarily improve the morale onboard.
The other option is to go north of this line. On that side, we find the semi-stationary ‘Azores High,’ also known as the Horse Latitudes. Known to sailors as an area of no wind and a burning sun—a place where you can be stuck for days on end, perhaps even weeks, if you don’t have an engine. Luckily, we have one onboard ADRIENNE. But we are sailors, not here to be motoring.
So, it stands between a bone-breaking upwind or no wind at all? Well, there is a joker involved. At this time of year—the northern hemisphere winter—deep low pressures regularly form further north in the Atlantic. From time to time, the cold fronts connected to these lows stretch far enough south to disturb the Azores High, bringing W’ly winds right down into the Horse Latitudes.
We have been monitoring the weather closely since leaving Sint Maarten, keeping our fingers crossed that such a low would be forming. For that reason, our course has been very much N’ly up until now. We really haven’t gained much distance at all towards our next port of call. Instead, we have invested our miles sailed to move north, to reach ‘The Low’ which hopefully would give ADRIENNE a good push towards Gran Canaria.
And we got it! As I’m writing this, a cold front has just passed by. Some beautiful squalls gave ADRIENNE and her crew a healthy shower. And now we’re pointing directly towards Gran Canaria in winds from astern. During the last hour, we averaged over 11 knots. The routing tells us we have approximately 13 days before landfall. We still have a lot of slaloming to do until then. New highs and developing lows are on the horizon. But for the time being, ADRIENNE is very happy. And so are the crew!
Love,
Erik, Skipper onboard ADRIENNE
ErikNordborg
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.