It was inevitable that we had to tack up north. The Sint Helena High is comparable with the Azores High that influences the weather in Europe. It is a relative stable high pressures system around the islands that give it its name. The high-pressure system that we are dealing with stretches far to the east. Therefore the favorable southerly winds are to be found near the African coast. The original course line went straight through the “high” and would not have given us good winds. The attached chart shows clearly what the situation is now and also what it was last week. The yellow dotted line is the voyage preparation and the red line the actual track. The H in the chart is the high pressure, the wind arrows indicate the wind direction and the tail if the arrow is the wind force. A small stripe is 5 KTS wind. A big stripe is 10 KTS wind. We need a minimum of 15 KTS of wind from the current direction to arrive under sail on time. Today we pressed “the pedal to the metal” and set the stun’ sails.

Richard Slootweg
Captain Clipper Stad Amsterdam