Stupid is, as stupid does

Day 2 : Ascension Island to Azores

Saturday, March 19th 2022

PredictWind thinks it knows me. And it thinks it knows what’s best for me too. But it’s wrong on both counts.

What little it does know about me, is because I told it so. It knows what speed we’ll sail at if the wind is 10 knots from an angle of 170 degrees. And it knows what speed we’ll sail at if the wind is 23 knots from an angle of 65 degrees.

In fact, it knows what speed we’ll sail at in pretty much every wind speed, from pretty much every angle. It even knows at what point we think speed is less important than comfort. And at what speed we’d rather motor than sail.

It knows this because when we set the software up, it asked those questions. And I told it.

And as a result, it feels confident to recommend the so-called “best” route to take to maximise boat speed and minimise motoring based on 6 different weather forecasts.

Every day, twice, I download those latest forecasts via the Predictwind software app, and every day, Predictwind shows us graphically how the next 10 days will play out for us under each of the 6 separate forecasts if we just do exactly what it tells us.

And then every day, I blithely ignore Predictwinds “suggestions” and do what I damn well please.

Because Predictwind doesn’t really know me at all.

It doesn’t know what it feels like to start off a 40-day sail by sailing in the wrong direction, and therefore how unlikely it ever was that we’d follow it’s route plan of sailing south west from Ascension for two days to pick up stronger wind.

And it doesn’t know about our desire to “ease in” gently to a big passage like this one by choosing not to sail the boat to its full potential (ie when we decided to ignore it’s routing suggestions and sail directly for the ITCZ, our decision was predicated on the fact that we can actually sail faster direct downwind in light airs than Predictwind thinks we can, due to our highly effective Twizzle-style rig with Big Pink AND our Genoa. But man, that rig configuration is S-T-R-E-S-S-F-U-L)

So it certainly doesn’t know why we’re sailing so damn slowly when it clearly told us if we just sailed in the wrong direction for two days we’d get where we wanted to much quicker.

In short, it doesn’t know about human frailties, about our desire for a decision to “feel” good, even if the data tells us it’s the wrong one and we know it.

Either the software’s pretty damn stupid. Or we are. But I’m not sure which (I’m too stupid to tell).

Either way, we’re sailing damn slowly towards the area where the wind is meant to be so light that we’ll be sailing damn slowly.

On the plus side, the weather is beautiful, the sea state flat, and we’re not in any specific rush at this point, so we’ve been happy enough to mosey along for these first couple of days and not stress ourselves out putting Big Pink up at the same time as our 4 other white sails (The only way for us to sail directly downwind as we’re doing in these light airs and keep our speed up).

But that equanimity and passivity can only last so long.

Day 3 is just beginning. Day 3 is when we find our mojo on passages. Day 3 is when we shake off the lethargy. Find the groove. Get the energy to work the boat.

Day 3 is when I sit down, look Predictwind in the eye, and say “Sorry. I was being stupid. Now where did you want us to go, again?”.

Day 2 Statistics:

Time on passage so far: 1 day, 20 hours
Distance Sailed so Far: 209 nm

Official Length of intended Route: 3,480 nm

Theoretical Distance to go: (3,480 – 209): 3,271
Actual Projected Distance to Go: 3,271

Distance covered in last 24 hours: 101 nm
Average Speed in last 24 hours: 4.2

Number of conversations where we said: “Shall we put up Big Pink and get moving? Nah, Let’s just take it easy today”: 4