Saturday 25 February 2017

BART

When tropical weather disturbances get a name (BART) rather than a cryptic number (such as 13F), you know they are getting serious. Having come to life in French Polynesia nearly a week ago, BART spun up into a typical hurricane (perhaps near-hurricane), left the tropics and headed our way. The New Zealand weather forecasters who concern themselves with this bit of ocean go beyond a "gale" warning to the more serious "storm" warning in their caution to stay away from its still-kicking remnant.

Our other forecast tools suggest winds over 50 knots and describe seas over 8 meters in height; definitely not something to be trifled with.

So here we are still going north ... When the center of the storm passes to the south of us tomorrow evening, we expect winds of less than 30 knots where we will be: all because of the few hundred miles of evasion-distance we have been accumulating during our recent off-course days.

Of course, then we'll have to scurry back again to the forty-something south latitudes we need to provide a reliable source of west winds to speed (??) us on our way to South America.

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At 2017-02-25 18:53 (utc) our position was 38°06.94'S 120°10.87'W

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