[Dar Es Salaam - Phuket] Day 34 -- Handbrakes

I had gone to bed early and woke about three in the morning of the thirtyfourth day. Curious who was on watch and why I hadn't been woken for a watch I stuck my head up the deck. My brother was up and about watching the many cargo ships around us. I came right in time, as he'd gotten tired after a long watch he had spent finding the perfect sail setup to support our progress mostly achieved through our engine. It didn't take long after he fell asleep for the conditions to worsen. The current apparently got stronger, the wind pushed hard on the nose, and the ship slowed down to about four knots. Our time goals were badly endangered, but nothing I tried would improve the situation. While fiddling around with the lines, sails and course I had to still keep an eye on the traffic. Even though everything seems to happen in slow motion, a cargo ship seen too late would simply crush us with a speed five times higher than ours and a weight of tens of thousands of tons.

It didn't take long for me to get a taste of it. A huge container ship, completely dark and unlit besides its tiny positioning lights was crossing my course. Against the pale moonlight it looked like a massive black wall towering high above our masts. I actually wondered how it had come so close so fast. A minute before I had only seen a couple of lights in the distance, now there was a dark evil monster moving directly into our path right in front of me. It had come close, very close. I steered away ninety degree, but felt how the wind and the current where pushing me into its direction as if still unsure whether to let our boat go untouched or not. The ships passed, only a little more than a hundred feet apart and the wave produced by the massive freighter shook our little boat heavily knocking out the autopilot the first time in over a day. I was even more alert now, but towards the break of dawn most of the ships had actually disappeared and the ocean seemed a less crowded place again.

We still had the problem of making too little speed. Down to three and a half knots it felt like driving in a decent car on a beautiful day with the handbrake engaged. The wind didn't seem to be the problem, it had calmed. So it must be the current, this time not pushing us forward but backward. I studied the charts closely. The captain had mentioned a notherly current before, not a bad thing as we were going northeast. As I looked at it I realized it was a northwesterly current, hindering all the progress we wanted to make towards the east. Using a floating bottle and a stopwatch my brother and I measured our speed in the water, five knots. We'd discovered now, what held us back, but had no idea how to solve our problem.

The problem showed less during the night as we were somehow gaining some speed, even though not satisfying us in any way. It was now about a hundred miles to Phuket and we were getting slower every day. We started to question, when we would actually be arriving now.

captains log:
ship getting less
strong current on the nose
Frankie has to take avoiding action to miss a cargo!
drop Main, stopping us too much!
1200 N6°35 E94°55 E=252,5 hours
three ships, strong current on the nose
1515 ENE 8kn, up Genoa
1800 wind on the nose, drop G
engine 2000 revs