Date: Saturday, June 10, 2017 – morning

Position: 340 nautical miles east of Ocean City, Maryland

Bounce. Heave. Lurch. Jerk. Boom. Crash. Fall. Lift. Slip. Roll. Slide. Bump. Rise. Plunge. Heel. Smash.

Physical life aboard Pride has been the above – add salt water spray. All clothing was soaked during a heavy rain squall, no matter waterproof outerwear. It is stuffy below deck, but fresh outside air comes through near deck openings.

When the motion is not so irregular and the sails are keeping full with a breeze of moderate strength so the ship is at a pretty comfortably moderate heel, life is pretty good. The temperature is comfortable. No sweating down below with hatches open. Meals are regular as clockwork. Phil Keenan, ship’s cook, is always cheerful despite wondering if he is in an extreme motion fun house.

The racing battle goes on. It has been two days and 316 nautical miles so far for Pride. She is 340 nautical miles east of Ocean City, Maryland. 240 nautical miles to go north to the first waypoint off the east end of George’s Bank of cod fishing fame. From there, the race course turns toward the northwest to another waypoint before the finish and on to our destination port of Boston, Massachusetts, some 468 nautical miles from where Pride is this morning.

As one can surmise from above, there has been some weather out here. Wind has gone from a sublime 10 knots southwesterly (Thursday) to a pretty damp and heavy 30 knots with gusts of 40 and maybe more in actual heavy rain squalls (Friday morning), followed by some virtual calm winds leaving behind an out of control sea state (Friday midday). Wind eventually filled in again from the west Friday afternoon and we had some good ol’ reaching sailing in drying conditions all night long till this Saturday (this morning) and a new even dryer northwest breeze and associated heaving sea. Forecast is for southwesterly winds again starting out light before filling in Sunday to around 15 knots (fingers crossed). Ought to let the sea swell moderate some. The timing might make for a bit of thrusting and bumping power reaching going from the first waypoint to the second. Not so sure I look forward to that. Likely to be more of the above heavy motion fun house.

Signed,

Captain Jan C. Miles