Nervous

Nervous

I am more than a little bit nervous as we slowly reach in the troughs of some impressive but unforgiving waves with winds at 31 or 32 gusting 38. The Solent is up with 3 reefs and I dare not reduce sail as we would lose steerage. Th current is, as luck would have it, against. All in all, a character builder I would say.

The forecast, already wildly wrong, is calling for both the swell and wind to subside. It looks that way to me so what has worked all night is not going to be changed significantly now. I will alter downwind slightly however just to keep us moving if the winds lighten.

I am not running off as I need to go north like I need a hole in the boat. Not only is it in the wrong direction, but north of us is another ridge and windless patch.

Turn three times, scratch a mast, and grab a stay
The wind and swell should go away
If not the morn, then let us pray
That it comes to pass sometime this day

EDITED: MY MISTAKE: In the post above, I referred to the forecast as being wildly wrong. It was. The issue, however, is whose.

Without distinguishing where that forecast came from, I may have unintentionally disparaged the exceptional work and untiring efforts of my good friend and weather forecaster/router John Bullas.

John’s work is deadly accurate and plays a vital role in keeping me safe. The forecast I referred earlier came from the PredictWind Offshore Weather app. Without saying whose forecast was wildly wrong, some of you who know that John is providing weather support may have thought it was his. I use the PW app as a backup and with John away and without reliable Internet, it was the PW weather routing app that provided the forecast.

My apologies John. I’ll make sure not to be ambiguous again.

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