The Captain's Logs are below.

Read the Crew's Views from John, KC, and Caroline as they reflect on their experiences in Asia.

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Once offshore, we found the heavy swells the weather service warned about rolling up from the south-southeast as we rounded Montauk Point of Long Island. But the wind was light and variable as predicted. So Pride II motored along at economical engine speeds with no sails set making an easy speed through the water of 7-8 knots. The large swell coming from the port beam caused Pride II to roll pretty heavily as she proceeded southwest, but it was a slow motion as the swells were spaced far apart. These swells were generated by Floyd and represented an early warning for anyone (from Mars) who had not heard the weather report that there was a big storm a comin'.

When Pride II is underway, we do not have access to the Internet. Weather reports for the mariner are available via radio signals and come in various forms; written, verbal and graphic. They are updated every six hours. Based on distance, current weather conditions, and, in some situations time of day, those radio transmissions can be increasingly hard to receive. The INMARSAT C (International Maritime Satellite consortium' standard C system) system Pride II carries provides weather information in text format, but only for the large ocean regions. So as Pride II eased along her way under power and the watch leaders kept an eye on things on deck, I monitored all other available weather reports, as they were up-dated.

Due to the near coastal route Pride II was on, the most available weather resource was VHF radio. This is familiar to the marine public as NOAA Radio (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association). Except for emergency updates, its reports are renewed every six hours. Its reports give details of conditions ashore as well as offshore. Forecasts are also provided giving details of coming weather as much as 36 hours ahead. (Our capability for projecting weather accurately has improved over time but can't yet accurately predict weather with any degree of confidence beyond 36 hours). In addition, NOAA reported lots of details about Floyd's position and movements. As I listened through the night and into Wednesday morning (and compared the verbal reports with weather maps coming in over the weather-fax receiver), it became slowly evident that Floyd was accelerating and might actually bring threatening influences to the Philadelphia region a whole day sooner than we thought when we left New London Tuesday morning.

This foreshortening of time before Floyd's arrival did not force a diversion to New York, however. Due to the calm night winds and the speed we had made all night, Pride II was well advanced along her route by Wednesday morning. Also, due to the slowly developing easterly breeze that had started Wednesday morning which was the leading edge of the anti-clockwise rotation of Floyd, Pride II was moving even faster and would reach the Delaware Bay Wednesday evening, a full half day earlier than originally estimated. That would leave another half day to get up the Delaware River and find a secure location for us. Ample time I felt.

As Pride II entered the Delaware Bay, her heading changed to the northwest, which put the slowly rising easterly wind on the starboard side rather than right behind. So up went the sails and we experienced a very fast ride up Delaware Bay. It was wet, though, as the early rain bands of Floyd had arrived. Despite the rain, the sail was appreciated by all aboard after 30 hours of motoring. With winds of some 15 knots, Pride II barreled along in the rain at almost 10 knots. It was a very exhilarating ride in the dark of night with blinking navigation lights and the odd commercial power vessel passing by. But the sail came to an end around midnight as the wind backed to the northeast due to the increasing proximity of Floyd. We had also reached a point where the river turned to the northeast in the vicinity of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and Wilmington. So down came all the sail and on went the engines and we raced Hurricane Floyd into Philadelphia to find a sheltered dock location.

After the passing of Floyd, we spent Friday morning cleaning up the deck. In anticipation of the storm, we had lowered the standing gaff foresail to reduce windage above the warehouse roofline, and had secured everything with extra lines. After cleaning up, we shifted to our assigned berth for the scheduled visit in Philadelphia at Penn's Landing right in the central part of the waterfront park area.

Cheers,
Captain Jan Miles