Commanders’ Weather Corporation
Friday, 08.11.2006

Route: Salvador, Brazil to Cape Town, SA

Departed: approx. 1200utc, Tuesday, August 1, 2006

Position: 29° 54 S, 26° 31 W at 1600utc Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Prepared: 1430utc Thursday August 10, 2006

Summary

• Currently, high pressure is centered near 27s/23w and is moving off to the E
• Look for freshening NW winds today and Friday from 30-31s
• Wind speeds may reach 20-30 kts by Friday night
• Low pressure is currently located near 40s/46w and is moving off to the E
• Estimate for 12 utc Friday: 44s/29s
• Estimate for 12 utc Saturday: 49s/03e
• Its associated cold front will catch and pass you during Saturday
• WNW winds will continue to increase ahead of this cold front Friday night and Saturday morning possibly to 22-35 kts
• For lighter winds, you will need to be at 28-29s
• Winds shift into the SW-S behind the cold front, still at 20-35 kts
• There is a chance of a few scattered showers, maybe an isolated squall with the cold front, but most of this activity should remain to your S
• By Saturday morning, another high pressure area will be near 36s/33w
• This high will be near 35s/13-14w by 12utc Sunday
• Should be near 30s/07w at 12utc Sunday
• As the high moves the ENE, winds will decrease by turn left into the SE-E-NE later Sunday and into Monday
• As the winds ecrease and turn ESE and E, you can head to the ESE or SE back towards 31s
• You will see freshening NW winds later Monday on the SW side of the high
• The next cold frontal system will be approaching you during the early to middle part of next week
• Watch for seas to become quite rough and choppy late Friday and Satursday as the winds increase and large swell from the storm passing to your S affects you
• SW swells may reach 13-18 ft and seas may be quite choppy
• Very rough seas will continue for Sunday, then begin to settle down Monday

Routing

1) Would recommend that you be close to 30s for Saturday/Sunday to avoid higher winds to the S

2) If winds are too strong at 30s, head N to 28029s for lighter winds

3) You will encounter a period of E headwinds Sunday into Monday and you can turn more to the SE back towards 30-31s to bring you back to NW windslater Monday

4) You may want to be close to 30s again for Tuesday to avoid WNW winds at 25-40 kts S of 31s

5) Please see waypoints listed in the wind forecast below

Wind Forecast

Wind directions are TRUE, wind speeds in KTS, and time is UTC

Thu, Aug 10

18: 300-320/8-15

Weather: Fair to partly cloudy

Seas decreasing to 3-5 ft WSW swell

Fri, Aug 11 €” winds higher to the S

00: 320-340/10-15

06: 310-330/14-20

12: 310-330/16-22 near 30 15s/20 45w

18: 300-320/17-24

Weather: Partly to variably cloudy

Seas 6-10 ft SW swell with developing wind wave drop

Sat, Aug 12 €” winds lighter to the N

00: 290-310/20-30

06: 280-300/22-32

12: 220-240/25-35 g40 near 30s/17 30w

18: 210-230/23-35

Weather: Variably to mostly cloudy with chance of a few scattered showers, maybe an isolated squall

Seas build to 13-18 ft SW swell and choppy

Sun., Aug 13

00: 170-190/20-30

12: 120-140/14-20 near 30s/15w

Weather: Partly cloudy

Seas 8-12 ft SW swell and choppy

Mon., Aug 14

00: 060-080/ 7-14

12: 320-340/14-20 near 30 30s/11 50w

Weather: Fair to partly cloudy

Seas decrease to 8-12 ft SW swell

Location: 31° 34.96 S, 24° 44.6 W
Thursday 12:00, 08.10.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on August 10 was 31° 34.96 S 24° 44.6 W. The wind was 330 degrees at 10-12 knots and we were heading 115 degrees at 7.3.

The noon position using GPS was confirmed by sun sight, which came up with a latitude of 31 degrees 35 minutes South. Right on! During the morning watch, it was noticed that we were getting an increased amperage draw from the Furuno GPS/radar/plotter, so it was shut down. After breakfast and an extra cup of espresso, Max and Bart went on the chase of the electrical fault like junior versions of Inspector Morse and Hercule Poirot. Instead of “Ah ha, it was a left-handed woman between the ages of 45 and 50!” it was “I have a ground fault in the secondary DC negative buss!”

All was cleared up by lunch (Mahi Mahi baked with potatoes and cauliflower), with the culprits being a damaged circuit breaker (poor construction) and some loose fittings. Meanwhile Lieve and I brushed off our musty memory of sun sights and cleaned up the sextant. We will try for star sights tonight at dusk. We also broke out GPS #2 (there also is a GPS #3).

The weather today is what in Maine we would call a smoky southwester, except here it probably would be called a norte/oeste fumaria, being Brazilian and from the Northwest. We are watching to the Southwest for LaVerne, but the wind stays light and the barometer steady at 1024.

One question we have gotten over email is how we keep in shape at sea. There is no one answer. One thing that is hard for landsmen to realize is that on a sailboat at sea, walking to the bow is more like playing on a jungle gym than walking down a street. Even sitting to read or eat, you are always tensioned or braced in some fashion. Even now while wedged into the ship’s office to type, my left leg is braced against the step and both elbows have to actively keep me relatively level with the keyboard. Certainly, also, raising, lowering and adjusting sails give you a regular upper body workout, as does coiling lines, polishing the binnacle, etc. During night watch I do some yoga to stay flexible, dimly-remembered ballet exercises using the binnacle grab rail as the barre, and occasionally pull in and let out the main sheet by hand to get the muscles moving. We probably eat less than when on land. Generally our big meal is all together at lunch. Dinner, due to different watch schedules, is usually pretty light — cold potato and a cup of soup, or a few slices of salami and cheese with some crackers. We don’t have many sodas on board, so a Coke is a small celebration and we drink almost no alcohol — just a glass of wine or a beer every other day.

Another question is about how we stay in contact. The inexpensive Dell lap top is connected to an Iridium sat phone. Email is handled by an organization called UUPlus. On the computer, UUPlus is the email program. When you finish a letter and press “Send,” the program takes the file, compresses it and stores it in a “Send Queue.” UUPlus does not allow fancy formatting, different fonts, “smilies,” or anything but basic letters and numbers. On the other end, UUPlus will regularly sweep any email accounts (except AOL…) and collect your mail, compress it and strip off fancy coding and most attachments. Big files are sent back to the sender with a note. Then when you are ready, you press “Connect” on the computer and it takes over the Iridium phone, dials up the UUPlus connection, dumps your mail “ashore” and grabs the packet ready to go. It will also pick up specific web files, like weather charts. Connection is usually pretty slow for land-based, perhaps 4800 bytes, but with the compression and simplification, I can uplink 5-10 messages, get the same back, plus a big weather file, all in perhaps a minute, which costs about $1.50 (plus the cost of the sat phone). I could do all this on SSB, where there is generally one fixed charge, but connection is rather more chancy, much, much slower, and the weather charts less usable.

I smell chocolate chip muffins ready for tea.

All is well.