Many of you will know of the grounding on a reef in the Indian Ocean by the Volvo Race boat, TEAM VESTAS WIND. So far I have not seen any explanation.
Chris in South Africa sent me a report with the coordinates of the grounding: 16°48.3’S 59°34.5’E.
As I have noted here in the past, often details do not appear on electronic charts until you zoom well in. I wondered if that could be the case here; but when I opened the C-Map 93 charts on my laptop, the reefs are shown even on a small scale view covering a large area. On the Navionics charts in my iPad, the area of shallow water is even more obvious.
I will be interested to learn what the crew says happened and why.
While my electronic charts were open, I checked to see if the Kermadec Islands appear on the same screen as Minerva Reefs in the new version of Navionics charts on my iPhone which combines Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific Islands. They do. Some of you will recall that this is not the case on the older version in my iPad where the Kermadec Islands can be seen only by switching to the New Zealand chart package even though they are to the east of Minerva Reefs.
A definite improvement.
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While I am sitting in front of a fireplace with air temperature on our balcony of 23°F/-5°C, Steve Earley, who has the good sense to live somewhere warmer, is enjoying the for him no longer mythical December sail in Norfolk, Virginia waters aboard his Pathfinder yawl, SPARTINA.
That is he in the above photo sent this morning. Another can be found on his site and I expect in time more detail of the sail.
I’m pleased for him. And envious.
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I have written here before about Bill in southwest England who sails, cares for foster dogs, plays in a band, and even holds down a job. He also takes imaginative photos, mostly with his smartphone.
There were even by his high standards some exceptional ones on his site recently. Scroll down to “A single-handed drift”, most of which were taken by his son, Sam; then on to “Indelible”, a lovely photo of ONDINE, his father’s Drascombe Lugger anchored in Cornwall. And then on to “Wednesday Evening” whose photos are captioned, “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”
All these are best seen at a larger size by clicking on them. And I, for one, needed to do so to understand the wolf.
Very, very well done.
