Mary Rose Heading for Bermuda?

Where in the world is the Mary Rose? Going to Bermuda?

Yesterday afternoon, Linda Knowles told me that the Mary Rose crew had wanted to stop in Bermuda on the trip back. This is possible, since one of Bonnie’s last posts the day before Easter was “See you in a few weeks”. Perhaps they are planning to stop there, so….

I modified the MR track to Bermuda instead, which puts MR on a course of 001 degrees True, pretty much due North. Winds and seas in the area are still around 22 knots, moving more astern, as are the seas at 3 meters in height. The more aft-shifting wind and sea conditions are not that favorable for MR; she becomes the ‘Mary Rolls’ as we called her on the way down. Why? Because she is long and narrow and her sail plan does not favor a wind and sea from astern. She likes a beam reach, close reach, broad reach.

So, for about 12 hours while winds were up towards 25 knots, I had her DR speed at 7.8 knots, but as the wind and seas have dropped a little and shifted aft, I have dropped them back to 7.3. Fascinating to me, she is now progressing over slightly shallower water – the “Bermuda Rise” where the bottom of the sea is 4,515 meters deep – rather than 5,160 meters, or 16, 930 feet – more than 3 miles deep! The Bermuda Rise surrounds the volcanic archipelago in a circle nearly 300 miles in diameter, which suggests to me that this was a site of major-league, ancient volcanism on a massive scale possibly billions of years ago.

On her current, revised track, I have her 170nm from landfall in St. George’s, Bermuda. That puts her at the entrance to Town Cut tomorrow morning, around 8 a.m., perfect timing. Let’s see if we can contact anyone on MR around mid-day tomorrow. It might be possible to reach Bermuda Harbour Radio by telephone to see if they have arrived or called ahead (as vessels are required to).

Mary Rose at the customs dock in St. George's, November 2010

Bermuda forecast for Friday is for winds south-southeasterly 12 to 18 knots, isolated showers, seas outside the reef 2 to 5 ft.; pretty easy stuff. Sea temps at 69 degrees F., and they will be arriving an hour or so after high tide, and well after sunrise (6:31 a.m. local time, which is Atlantic time).

So we’ll keep the speed at 7.3 knots and assume that they will get in to clear customs early in the morning – if indeed they are headed for Bermuda. If they stay in Bermuda for a few days, they’ll see partly sunny skies with the occasional chance of a shower, and temps between 70 and 75 degrees F. – just perfect!

Time for cocktails and a bite at the Wahoo! Or a bus ride into Hamilton to hit the Hog Penny Pub!