DATE: Dec 29th, 2014
BOUND FROM: Reunion Island, France, Indian Ocean
TOWARDS: Cape Town, South Africa, Atlantic Ocean
TIME ZONE: GMT +3
NOON POSITION: 34°14.7’S /025°46.1’E
DAYS RUN: 162 nm
PASSAGE DISTANCE RUN: 1,829 nm
DISTANCE REMAINING: 420 nm
WIND: Wind Force 4-5, SxE
WEATHER: Fair, 7/8 cloud, visibility very good, barometer 1021 millibars and rising slowly
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: SSE 2-3m swell
SAILS SET: Square sails to t’gallants, spanker, main topmast and main t’gallant staysails, inner and outer jib
SHIPS WORK: We’ve beefed up the watches to go around the Cape of Good Hope, so most daymen are now standing watch instead. This together with the rainy weather and variable winds means we’ve not been doing much ship’s work for the last couple of days, apart from just sailing the ship. The seas started to lay down this afternoon though, and forecasts look ok, so knock on wood and cross your fingers but it looks like fair weather to round the Cape.
REMARKS: We were less than 20nm south of Cape Recife at noon today. This close to port there are lots of ships around, so we’re keeping a sharp look out and monitoring our electronic equipment to make sure we give these big commercial ships a wide berth – the rules of the road might say steam gives way to sail, but we’d be mad to start tacking about in front of a big chemical tanker! Captain gave the crew an introduction talk about Cape Town this afternoon – everyone’s getting excited now.
A bit of weather but seas are laying down now
Elsa on helm