Pentanemos Route planning - The ARC

From: Andrew Jones

Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 11:43 AM

To: 'john mclean'

Subject: P Weather forecast Sat 21/11/09

Hi Jon

Below the forecast for the next 7 days.

I have based it on you taking the more westerly track to WPT1. That is aim for 26W rather than 24W.

There is a slight gamble in it in that it relies on the ENE winds remaining in higher latitudes for a while. The benefit is that it will “cut the corner” a little. You will still have the option of making a more southerly course if the forecast proves to be wrong and the stronger winds establish themselves further south.

Please let me know what your call is.

                        21/11/2009

                        Forecast - All Noon Times

Sun      22/11/2009        ENE15

Mon      23/11/2009        ENE20

Tue      24/11/2009        ENE15

Wed     25/11/2009        ENE17

Thu      26/11/2009        ENE15

Fri        27/11/2009        ENE17

Sat       28/11/2009        ENE10

You should have received the email with the “best wishes “ from your Mom, Julia and Roy.

The parties sound fantastic and what a good idea to have the departure party 36 hours before the off. – Time to sober up!

Best wishes from me and Diane. We do hope that you have some great sailing and that fair winds follow you all the way.

Andrew

 

Dear all
Below you will find the email I sent to "the men". It will give you some idea of the distances and times involved.
Andrew Jones

 

Subject: P 091119 Possible Waypoints

Dear Jon, Neil and Will
I have had a good look at the weather over the last weeks and also looking at the Admiralty routing charts for November and December I think you might consider the following waypoints

 

WPT1 somewhere between 20N 24W and 20N26W (I have used 20N 25W for my distance calculations)
WPT2 17.30N 30W
WPT3 15N 40W
WPT4 North of St Lucia 14 07N 60 56.4W
Distances of waypoints from Las Palmas and time given an average speed over ground of 5 knots
WPT1 716nm (6 days)
WPT2 1038nm (8.6 days)
WPT3 1634nm (13.6 days)

WPT4 2853nm (23.75 days)

Note that every half knot extra SOG saves roughly 2 days for the whole trip.

These should help you take advantage of the current (0.5kt) and get you into the better winds that generally exist south of 20N as quickly as possible. Throughout the period I have been looking at the weather, there is potentially more wind to the south of WPT3 and some of the larger yachts do go further to the south (even if they have to cover a greater distance and come back north to get to St Lucia). However you have to balance the extra distance to run compared with the POTENTIAL stronger winds.
What I think is that we could do is to modify this course based on the weather forecast as you go along.
A course based on these way points would give you a distance to run of 2853nm (the rhumb line is about 2700nm) with an average speed of say 5 knots means you should have an eta of Wednesday 16th Dec    (23.75days).
FORECAST FOR SUNDAY
Between Las Palmas and WPT 1 NE15-20 ……. It’s as simple as that!
Please can you let me know what your planned Waypoints are likely to be.
I suggest that we have email contact time between 17.00 and 20.00hrs UT starting on Monday 23rd. Please confirm if this is what you want to do.
All the best
A
Andrew Jones