MysticSail.com

It looks like Santa might bring us a Christmas present after all, I guess we must have been somewhat good this year. I dropped an e-mail to our weather forcaster Dane Clark and here is his two cents…..

“Kyber,

I’m back in the office now and have reviewed the weather forecasts. Sunday does not look good for a departure with a frontal passage in your area and possible gale force winds and squalls, but with a departure on Monday, you could have a fair to good window for the trip direct to Tortola (I assume the preferred destination). Current forecasts show winds on Monday as brisk westerly tending northwesterly later in the day and slowly decreasing. Tuesday for the Gulfstream crossing, models show light to moderate northwest to north winds, which not ideal, should work for you with your large boat moving quickly across the stream. After that, winds are forecast to slowly veer to easterly and southeasterly over the rest of the week and then weaken to light air as high pressure builds. You should push past this light air late in the weekend and then get the typical easterly trade winds that look rather light at this point on to Tortola.

There is a weak system moving across the southeast US late Tuesday that needs to be watched, because if it develops a low pressure system off the southeast coast, this could cause stronger northeast winds and present a problem. Current models show this system weak. We can watch this over the weekend.

Dane”

Let’s hope this forecast holds up and we get our mainsail back today from the sailmaker and can get all the rest of our chores done to get this ship of ours ready to sail. Merry Christmas everyone and as they say down here, make sure to get er shoppin done! Kyber