349th: Thank You For Asking Elisa.....

I have been a bit quiet on the Himself front lately after a certain family member expressed irritation with my constant posts on his progress and a preference for more family related news!

However, as the lovely Elisa has been so kind as to express an interest, I do have exciting things to report.

When I last posted, Himself had experienced the vagaries of the mid-Atlantic winds and discovered why everyone else had gone so far south after rounding the mark. He had peaked at 137th position and quickly dropped off back into the high 700s as he headed south.

Over the next few days he kept his eye on the ball and was up at 6am checking his heading and position. He hit the westerlies, albeit behind the leaders, and started to pick up places again although he had missed the best of the gale and was significantly behind. Then, this afternoon, he noticed some new information regarding another low building up off South America and moving east.

This low, due to the clockwise, circular direction of the air currents, means that the boats who are further south [* btw he is now at 337th position] are going to be sailing straight INTO the teeth of a gale within 36 hours. This means they will have to tack, which slows them down, and then as the system moves across them, they will end up in a 'hole'. Bliss. Those boats further north, like Himself, will be able to head south at the same time as all this is happening and pick up a nor'westerly air stream shooting them straight down towards Capetown. He feels he is poised to 'clean up'.

He has been pricing up the watches which are up for grabs to see what he could get for one on ebay :-D

The real boats are now ahead of him by between 400 and 1000 nautical miles although the virtual leaders are ahead of two of the real fleet. In a nice twist, one of the crew off Ericsson 3 (now in real second place) has also joined the virtual race through satellite connection on the boat and Himself is only 28 miles behind him.

Please bear in mind folks that this is only the first leg of a ten leg, round the world race. So far he has been playing solidly for 20 days. Should I be concerned?

The other night the game 'crashed' for half an hour and you should have seen the anxiety and consternation! I think we can safely say that Himself is an addict. I wonder if they have special meetings?

"Hello, my name is Himself and I am a virtual sailor."
(chorus) "Hello Himself"