Mary Rose Crossing Gulf Stream; Stormy Day Ahead

A few glitches in the DR plotting program – such as the computer trying to go to sleep at night – have resulted in some miscalculations, i.e., on the good side – my program had MR making less progress than actual. It didn’t look right this morning; so I manually re-calculated – the first 25 hours at 7.3 knots (6pm Sunday to 7pm Monday) then another 12.5 hours at higher rates, given the increasing wind speed, to 8.2 knots currently. During the last two trips on MR, when she was really moving along with favorable winds, she managed around 10 knots at times, though the average was 7-plus. Each 6-hour watch saw between 40-50 nm of progress, so I’m roughing it around there.
The good news is, that places MR much further along at 7:30 a.m. this morning – about 280 miles SE of Newport, and according to my chart, they should be approaching the SE edge of the Gulf Stream within a few hours, and then be out of it – a good thing with deteriorating wind and sea conditions out there.

Right now I estimate their latitude to be approaching that of Cape Charles, VA – just a little north, maybe 10-15 miles – and about 370nm east. On their course right now, according to PassageWeather, they are being headed – 25 knots of wind out of the SSE, practically on the nose; so Capt. Tom is going to have to turn either westward, toward the coast, or eastward, further out into the Atlantic, in order to continue making progress. Eastward will get him out of the Gulf Stream faster, but the winds are backing around more to the east and northeast, so his best choice for making progress is to head southwest, but wind-wise, it’s going to be a frustrating day and they’re going to lose a lot of time and progress. Winds will be shifting around, always on the nose, until late tonight, when the wind goes around to the NW and starts blowing hard.

It’s going to be a wet, gray, lumpy day out there with confused seas and changing wind direction, frustrating progress. The cabin below will be a real mess with damp clothes and wet foul weather gear hanging everywhere and in piles. The guys from the midnight-6am watch will be trying to sleep, probably on the cabin sole. It will be noisy, with the contents of the cabinets shifting around. Those who can eat will probably have hot tea, crackers, cookies, fruit, bread and peanut butter. Out in the cockpit, it will be a long, sloppy day with occasional spray blowing aft to drench the helmsman and his watch-mate. The engine is probably running to aid progress. It’s going to be a very long day, and the next 24 hours.

But the further south they can get, the further north the storm will pass, sparing them the centers of the highest winds, and the whole thing will dissipate quickly and pass well to the east by Wednesday afternoon.