December 12, 2024
Musandam In The Doldrums (Photo Courtesy of Oman Sail)
Musandam In The Doldrums (Photo Courtesy of Oman Sail)

 

400 miles north east of the Seychelles, with the southern most islands of the Maldives over 600 miles to the east, trimaran Musandam currently situated at 02° 29.9350 S / 062° 13.0724 E. See the latest position on the Race Tracker.

Heading north west with a 5 knot wind from the north (the direction Musandam is trying to head). The hope is that they have now found a more consistent breeze and that this is the beginning of the end of the Doldrums and sanity can be restored.

Over 90% of the distance of their round the world attempt is now covered and has been done so at relative high speed, this last 10% with Muscat effectively on the radar  has become a all about preserving sanity,  with the cabin temperature a stifling 30 degrees and little or no shade on deck the British boys have pulled out the stiff upper lip attitude and of course have reveled slightly in the England victory over France in the 6 nations last night, some sporting banter to take all their minds off the slow progress. Mohsin again finding the conditions easier to handle in the heat but as frustrated as everyone else that they have been slowed for so many days, there will be some significant offerings to Neptune (God of the sea in Roman mythology) as they cross the equator from south to north requesting more favorable winds for the remaining 1,500 miles of their journey .

News from The Crew onboard today “The last 12 hours have been fairly hard work…. we have changed sails, got rained on (heavily) and manage to move just 15 nautical miles. This is some kind of record, especially for this boat. We hope now to have found some slightly more consistent wind and perhaps things can improve from here on. Unfortunately that new wind is from due north, exactly where we want to go – and it’s only 5 knots, so it’s far from the keys to the exit to the doldrums we wanted. We still have quite a bit more twisting and turning to do before we are out, but the horizon is clearer now, so perhaps it’s the beginning of the end.

Apart from that we had managed to make some progress between noon and 1700 GMT, a massive 35 nautical miles. All these distances we are used to doing in two or 3 hours, in fact it’s possible to do that 15 nautical miles in 30 minutes in the right conditions so it’s quite odd to be looking at the computer distances and seeing how low they are, even the scale on the electronic charts to see our 24 hour period is a long way from it’s normal view – a good day is 400 nautical miles, a big day 500 nautical miles.

Obviously it’s still hot and only the hours of darkness really offer a respite, sun hats, sun cream and sunnies are the 3 S’s that you need before heading out on deck during daylight, then head for the 4th S is shade, and try to conserve energy by the 5th S which is sitting. Loik just woke up looked around and said “the doldrums have cost us a lot of energy”,  that says it all. The miles here are the hardest fought for anywhere on the planet., we can’t rely on the efficiency of the yacht designer’s hull shape,  or the sailmakers sail shapes, or the skill of the crew to steer them, or sheet them correctly. No wind means no power and just like a car with no fuel, we go nowhere.

The flip side of all of this is that we are not totally loosing our sense of humor and are lucky to have at least two stiff upper lips onboard, and generally in better spirits when Haribo time comes around. We keep reminding ourselves how ‘lucky’ we are to be here, and that there are far worse things to do, in far worse places than this. AND WE ARE NOT TOO FAR FROM ARRIVING BACK IN MUSCAT. which we are all looking forward to very much!”

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