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Gary
 
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Default Longest Dead Calm (or Becalmed) Sailing Experience?

Bryan wrote:
"Gary" wrote in message
news:_jZjf.13770$Gd6.5128@pd7tw3no...

Bryan wrote:

I've never experienced an absence of wind where I didn't have an
auxilliary (sp?), you know, a motor, to fall back on; I've only read of
the scenario.

What is the longest dead calm you've experienced? Were you relaxed, you
know, calm, about it? How long did it take before it started to get to
you, if at all?

If not you, what is the longest dead calm our sailing author's have
experienced and lived to tell?


I once experienced 4 days of almost dead calm in a Vic-Maui race. We got
too close to the centre of the high pressure. For those days we covered
about 25-30 miles a day. It was sweltering hot and we were misersable.



Hard to say if you would have still been miserable if you hadn't been racing
and it hadn't been sweltering hot. Did you ever doubt you would find wind
again?


We knew it was an anomalie. The high had moved very close to the coast
in an unusual pattern. There was wind all around us. What made us
miserable was that our wives were in Hawaii and waiting for us. We were
so late getting there that they had all flown home. The trip that
normal takes 12 - 15 days took us 21! We ran out of food at 18 and we
were reduced to slim fixin's.