Ready to Go!

Weather briefing.

The Caribbean 1500 crew has had the final weather briefing along with an analysis of the Gulf Stream, and we’reclear for departure Thursday AM. That’s the good news. The bad news is it is looking like a very light trip. But then, we’ve been more or less expecting this. Anytime you have a big weather system pass through your part of the world, surface winds are usually pretty light for a while afterwards.

In this case, it is a big high pressure system now building over the mid-west and pushing out into the Atlantic. If we can get down the track to the underside of the high, before the center catches us, we could have a reasonable passage. Another “if” is the wind angle. It looks now like we could have southwest winds for a few days – that’s a fast angle even in light airs. But if the wind goes more to the north, we’ll burning a lot of diesel.

We’ll get up early tomorrow, check the weather faxes, and then download the latest grib files and run the SetSail MaxSea routing program. This will give us a handle on how much motoring we’re likely to have to do and the required fuel.

Regardless of the weather forecast, we, and just about everyone else here are ready to go!