Mike Harker
Help! I’m sinking
We join Mike on the
penultimate leg of his
circumnavigation aboard
his Hunter 49, Wanderlust.
He weighs anchor from
St Helena, heading for
Miami …
W
hile preparing to depart from St Helena in forecast for around five days in advance. I will be sailing out in
the South Atlantic, I put a waypoint on my the open waters, without land, for about six or seven weeks!
Ray Marine chart plotter at the equator and This particular passage, from St Helena to Antigua, will be
30 degrees west longitude. The only paper my longest and the most unpredictable of any voyage I have
charts I carry are the three Pilot Atlases for the three major undertaken so far. Instead of sailing with the constant Trade
oceans. When I left Miami nine months ago, heading towards Winds westwards around the world, I shall be traversing the
Panama by way of Jamaica and the western Caribbean, I used South Atlantic ocean, crossing the Equator into the Caribbean
the Atlantic Pilot Atlas book of charts that also include the and finally into the north Atlantic ocean from South to north.
Caribbean and Mediterranean. This route crosses several different wind and current patterns
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston writes in the Foreword of this and the infamous Doldrums just north of the equator. I was
indispensable book: “During the nineteenth century the first hoping that nothing would go wrong.
major effort was made to collate and publish weather routing I weighed anchor from the roadstead of Jamestown, in
information. The US Bureau of Charts published monthly charts the early hours of December 28th. The Christmas festivities
containing the average wind and currents. These were the first and newly acquired friends had left me in joyous spirit. I
Pilot Charts, and the modern pilot chart has the sound base of had studied the Pilot Atlas and read Jimmy’s pages for this
over 150 years of data collection.” imminent leg the evening before departure, and put three
These three books – Atlantic, Pacific and Indian ocean Pilot waypoints on my Ray Marine chart plotter. The first was just off
Atlas – along with Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes, have the southwest corner of Ascension Island, 700 miles to the nW
been my principle source for planning my circumnavigation and of St Helena. I will usually set a waypoint mark on the plotter,
weather routing. With their combined information they simply additionally marking any dangerous rocks, small islands or
tell me when I can safely be in any ocean of the world and atolls, to highlight my awareness while crossing oceans.
for how long. of course I have daily weather prognosis from I tend to keep the plotter on a rather large scale to show my
my GRIB files and I even look in on oCEnS when in doubt, but progression, which means that some of the small atolls do not
this informs you of the current weather and can only predict a show up on the charts unless you reduce to the smaller scale.
MARCH 2009 YACHTWORLD.COM 45
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