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36 hours and 200 miles to Halifax

For the last 72 hours, the weather forecasters have been correcting their original forecast for a coming northwest wind with every update. Yesterday’s evening forecast indicated there would be no northwest wind…that the wind would remain light. With 200 nautical miles to go, and only 36 hours left to cover the distance, PRIDE II got moving ahead under power. Of the small fleet of collected vessels within range of PRIDE II’s AIS that left PETER VON DANZIG as the only vessel remaining underway under sail at 2100 EDT yesterday.

Off in the distance, with the aid of some VHF propagation “skip”, yesterday afternoon I had seen on PRIDE II’s AIS both KRUZENSHTERN and EAGLE some distance to the west-southwest; they were right next to each other and evidently sailing by the indication of their speed and their course over the ground. Considering they can motor pretty fast, maybe they continued their “match sailing” well into last night as well.

Light wind sailing can be pretty frustrating. Aboard PRIDE II it was seen as quite acceptable this time around because of everyone being tired from all the activities in Boston. There is anticipation of a lot going on in Halifax, so there is no desire to get in early. Hence everyone aboard was quite comfortable drifting along until it was absolutely necessary to push on.

This morning PRIDE II is just to the east of the fabled Cape Sable and its strong ocean currents located at the southwest end of Nova Scotia. The morning weather report suggests some wind coming off of the land before shifting to parallel the coast and increasing to 20 knots in a typical summer day southwest flow. We have 110 nautical miles to go and do not really have to be in Halifax till business hours open tomorrow. I think we will go sailing again!

Cheers,
Jan C. Miles, Captain aboard Pride of Baltimore II