The Storm

Ship: Regina Maris
Date: 27th of February 2025
Position: North Atlantic Ocean
Geographical Position: 31°08.524’N 069°02.882’W
Etmal: 128 nm
Total: 8767 nm

In the night which was the beginning of yesterday one of the various low pressure areas of the Bermuda-Triangle caught up to us.

Perfectly on time (as always), Bravo 2 started their watch at 5pm. Everything was normal except the barometer until the sun went down into the ocean. We went about 6 knots on a NE course with about 700rpm of the engine, SW 5bft wind and three sails up (Fock, Schoner stormsail, Main stormsail).

Suddenly we heared a thunder behind us and instantly our first officer started the radar. There was a big yellow stripe on the screen eastward from us, about two to three nautical miles away. Everyone went out and watched the big black cloud behind us. Then the radar calculated the speed of the cloud and told us that we only had seven minutes left until the cloud moved right over us.

Everyone was sent inside, the Captain was woken up, all hatches and the watertight doors were closed and even the crew took lifejackets. The silence before the storm followed.

It started with a heavy rain lasting on for about ten minutes. While it was raining, the wind started to get stronger (7bft). After about another ten minutes the wind reached 8bft and turned this and that way.

Finally we were out after 20 minutes. We were happy!

But when we looked at our radar, it showed us the next big yellow stripe moving towards us and right behind it came the next one. In total, we survived about eight of this thunderclouds, from time to time we had 9-11bft and a record of 42 degrees heeling.

On top of everything, at some point, our GPS-compass started showing completely wrong values… But we still had left four other redundant GPS-sources and the two magnetic compasses.

The view from the messroom:

In the meantime every student was in the messroom, also some teachers and the cook. When no one was allowed to get out anymore, the teachers and the cook got ready for a difficult night in the messroom, the galley duty got the dinner ready.

Everyone was dealing somehow with the 42 degrees. Later on, groups gathered and started watching movies (luckily the iPads and Laptops) were in the messroom at lockdown.

When the weather got worse, Malte was just pressing his head against one of the aft bullseyes trying to see anything in the darkness, when we suddenly got 42 degrees and the starboard bullseyes were sub mare. The water crushed right in front of his head.

Finally, almost everything was locked in its place to not fly around and the messroom got calmer. At some point the electric grid collapsed because a wave found its way into the navigation screen. The emergency lighting flickered but then started working steadily and the laptops for the movies were fully charged so everything was fine.

While our crew did a brave work up at the bridge, we watched movies, ate dinner, supplied the crew with food and clothes and went to bed very late.

Anmerkungen:

Nuala: Liebe Tashi, ich wünsche Dir alles alles Liebe und Gute zum 18!!!! Ich denke ganz fest an Dich! Ich hoffe, Du hast mein Brief gelesen. Hoffe, Dein Tag war ganz toll!! Anfang März bekommen wir unser Handy. Hab‘ Dich soooooooooo dolle lieb, Deine Nuala❤️🫶🏼💍

Antonio: MUSTARD