We are currently in position 35 04N 047 26W, saillng at 4.5 knots on a course of 105M. The wind is N at 8-12 knots with a slight sea and 4m swell. We are sailing under full main and yankee. Scattered cumulus cloud. Our day's run was 131nm, our DMG was 107nm and we have 925nm to go.
In addition to downloading GRIB files we are also receiving weather facsimiles over the HF/SSB. We're finding those transmitted by NWF in Boston to be the best - they are both laid out well and we receive them clearly. The faxes include current analysis and forecasts, at sea level and also 500Mb. I'm no expert at interpreting the 500Mb pictures but am reading up on them. The nice thing about the faxes is they show the fronts - something that GRIBs do not show.
North Atlantic Surface Weather Forecast for 3rd June
Yesterday afternoon the winds held in at 20-25 knots until late afternoon when they dropped to 14-18 knots. Overnight and this morning the winds gradually dropped and they are now down to 8-12 knots. Meanwhile the swell was increasing from 1m yesterday to at least 3m now. These were generated by the big depression to our NE. The swell is making it difficult to maintain boat speed in the decreasing wind.
The big depression also appears to have generated a pulse of S flowing current. Yesterday afternoon and overnight we were being pushed south at around 1 knot. The RTOFS current GRIB showed up to 1.6 knots of S current in our area. Thankfully we're out of that current now and if the GRIB data is correct we should have an E current helping us along for the next few days if we stay around 35N latitude.
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