Day 208, Year 10: Passage to Cape Cod, Day 4-Fighting Headwinds
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Weather: Sunny, but Cooler; High Temp in the Upper 60’s, Wind NE 10-15
Latitude: 38 49.800 N
Longitude: 074 22.439 W
Location: 15-20 Miles Offshore Between Cape Henlopen, DE and Cape May, NJ
Like much of this cruising season, we either have winds directly behind us or directly in front of us, both making sailing impossible. Today around noon the winds went instantly from behind to us in front of us and they will probably stay this way all night and possibly all day tomorrow. Sometime tomorrow or tomorrow night, they should go from the northeast back to the south or southwest. But in the meantime, we will be fighting headwinds and a strong counter current that comes and goes. We are currently motoring at 2600 RPM’s which is as high as we ever run and are only going about 4 knots. When the current turns, we will go back to 5 knots and when the winds are behind us again we can go anywhere from 5.5 to 6 knots. Yesterday when we were traveling between 5.5 and 6 knots, our arrival time in Quissett Harbor was late Friday afternoon. If we stay at the current 4 knots, we won’t be there until Saturday morning. So sometime in that period we should arrive at back at home base on Cape Cod. In the meantime, we’ll read our way north.
