Last minute routing

I mentioned in my last post that the icebergs are much further south than they have been in recent years. If you want to see what the “international Ice Patrol” is saying, here’s their site and here’s today’s iceberg map.

So, what does that mean for routing? Well, if you look at the last few days’ reports, you’ll see that the ‘bergs are migrating south at a pretty good rate. So I plan to leave at least 1° of latitude (60 nautical miles) between me and the limit when I start, so there’s a cushion for 1) iceberg sighting error and 2) the expected drift over the next few days. (I’ll continue to check the iceberg situation and will change my route if necessary.)

Here’s my current routing plan (without taking weather into account):

The route shown above is just over 2900 nm in length. If it weren’t for those pesky icebergs (or my penchant for safety) I could, in theory, follow a track that’s 335 nm shorter. (That’s about two days’ sail for Resolute.)

And the weather adds a bit more complexity. Here’s an image of the “sporty” conditions forecast about a week out. That’s the projected position of Resolute a week from tomorrow—right in the “bull’s eye” of a low. If the forecast were exactly correct, it wouldn’t be too bad. But if the low ends up a little further south, I could find myself going to windward in 30+ knots of wind. That’s not very comfortable!

But there’s a lot of time for the weather to change between now and then. We’ll see!