The tide waits for no man, and as such PICTON CASTLE hove up anchor at the turn of the tide a little after 0600 this morning. With a light Northerly breeze making up we quickly set all sail and began to work the ship to windward out of the roads. As the breeze picked up, the ship started to make better ground to windward and the crew, improving with each tack, started to get into the rhythm. As sailing ships have been doing in these waters for hundreds of years we kept on working the ship with the tide, and after about seven tacks the ship cleared Ile D’Oelron and stood off to the Southwest at a decent clip of 5.5 knots, not bad for the light breeze. It could not have been a better morning for the crew, with each manoeuvre seeing the ship make better ground and the excitement of being able to work the ship out to sea, the mood onboard was high.
As the day wore on the wind slowly tapered off leaving the ship gliding along slowly during the beautiful afternoon. With the rain and fog of the last passage and the week of clouds in port, this has definitely been the most pleasant day of our summer voyage yet. Always good to put to sea with good sailing and lovely weather.
SHIP’S WORK: Spot paint grey and buff, bits and chocks. Make new chock plug backing.
FROM: La Rochelle, France
TOWARDS: Quebec, Canada
TIME ZONE: GMT
NOON POSITION: 46°04.3’N / 001°29.9’W
DAYS RUN: 16nm PASSAGE LOG: 25nm
DISTANCE REMAINING: 4,580nm
COURSE AND SPEED: SW, 4.5kts
WIND: WNW, Force 4
WEATHER: Sunny, air temp: 20°C, water temp: 15°C
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: N’rly, 3ft
SAILS SET: All Sail