Passed The Halfway Point
29 January 2016 | 140 miles WNW of Cape Verde, Cape Verde Islands
Just a few hours ago passed two significant points in my planned trip. First thing crossed my outbound track and thus completed the circumnavigation of the Antipodal to my starting point Sydney Heads. Though this is not a requirement of the World Sail Speed Record Council it's just a personal thing and I'm glad it's accomplished. Just a few hours later I passed the halfway mark of the trip. This is a somewhat arbitrary point and I will outline how this was determined. On the excellent MaxSea navigation program on my Toughbook computer I plotted just the main significant way points and mid ocean marks to round Faisal and come down to the present position and then on to the Horn, Alexander Selkirk Island, just North of Tahiti and then home. This powerful program allows you to pop in the starting date and you can choose a speed to match your actual arrival at any given point and instantly the arrival dates of all others, past and future are displayed. To get to the halfway p oint, 14,346.3 miles of the total of 28692.7 miles a speed of 4.3 knots puts me precisely at my present position, and is in very close agreement with the arrival dates of past points. Looking to the future it has me passing Cape Horn on the 16th of March and arriving Sydney on the 14th of June, which I have a feeling will be pretty close to the mark. When asked how long I expected the trip to take I told everyone I would like to complete it in eight months but a more realistic time for provisioning would be ten months, so to split the difference would be a most satisfactory outcome. And speaking of provisioning guess what? Two Mahi Mahi in two days. The first was quite small and will provide three substantial meals. The second is around 5 kilos so will be more than sufficient for a week so I have just fired up the fridge. As I promised myself on the first calm occasion after rounding Horta a detailed stocktake was made of the remaining provisions and everything seems more than adequate for a ten month trip even without catching any fish. I must apologise for waxing whimsical in my Troppo post. I have a few different views on certain matters, and will still put them out there for discussion, but will do so in a more restrained and sober consideration lest my welcome home committee be all wearing white coats.
