Underway
May 26, 2019
Day 233
Noon Position: 36 28N 60 19W
Course(t)/Speed(kts): W 5
Wind(t/tws): NNW 15
Sea(t/ft): NW 10
Sky: Cumulus
10ths Cloud Cover: 3
Bar(mb): 1017, steady
Cabin Temp(f): 72
Water Temp(f): 70
Relative Humidity(%): 63
Sail: #2 full, reaching. (Main after cleanup.)
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good (nm): 35
Miles since departure: 30,745
Avg. Miles/Day: 132
Leg North Miles: 7587
Leg North Days: 67
Avg. Miles/Day: 113
Wind is down but we still have a stacked and vertical sea, which made hauling the drogue challenging for all the attention one needed to pay to hanging on.
The haul, 300 feet of rode with a tiny parachute-like cone at each foot, took two hours. My special plan, to run a line from the big genoa winch through a block at the bow and back to the drogue at the quarter, failed. The plan was necessary because the cones of the Jordan Series Drogue don’t like going round a winch. The fail was due to the line used for the drogue: Dyneema. It is simply too slippery for either rolling hitches in series or a doubled up prusik knot. So, the cones went around a winch, and the grinding was slow.
But done. And the drogue is coiled and stowed. And the tag lines are coiled and stowed. And Wattsy, the hydrogenerator, has been replaced in his stern bracket. And sails have been raised. And by a little after noon we were underway.
To the west, as wind is still out of the north.
Weather will be unsettled the next few days. But by Wednesday, we may get our wind.
—
I’m including a blue-sky photo from mere hours before the low settled in by way of illustrating the crossed winds rule. Two days ago I mentioned David Burch’s barometer rule, i.e a drop of 2mb in 3 hours suggests the approach of strong wind. Another indication is when wind at altitude is running across wind on the surface.
The rule: “stand with your back to the lower wind and if the upper wind is coming from the left, weather will normally deteriorate.” From Alan Watts *Instant Weather Forecasting.* (Southern hemisphere, from the right.)
In the photo, I am standing with my back to the left of the frame. Here we get a double whammy. The upper wind is coming in at a right angle to the lower wind, and above that, another wind layer is veered even further.
The next shot of Mo in cloud was ours two hours later. 
I learned some thing weather wise from this post, thanks
Yikes! These last 36 hours or so have been a little terrifying to watch. So how was it, really? Were you sitting below, sipping tea, patiently enduring yet another low? Or were you hanging on white-knuckled, constantly fearing the drogue line would part and all would go to hell in an instant, as I would have been?
TO be honest have sent up a few prayers for you … Bravo on the drogue … now to get yourself and Moli up and across the Gulf Stream “route directe” using the eddy you have been in … and then for Down East and beyond to Newfoundland … will keep the prayers going for what they are worth … !