4S, 34W
Rounded Recife last night! Sparrow cracked off only a little as the genius routing program calls for heading a bit north as we will get headed in coming days. Then slowly we head more westerly. Sparrow will be aiming for Central Florida for now. Destination unknown. Forecast looks terrific with at least a week of tradewind, champagne sailing. Seas are sloppy this morning and the decks are wet, but it could be a pretty quick run over to the Floridian Coast.
Gotta say, Sparrow really is a remarkable sailing boat. With 50 feet of waterline, moderate lines, modern keel and rudder she is fast upwind and down; an all-around boat. Sparrow is doing an easy 10 knots with working sails. We would be going 2 knots faster with a downwind sail, knocking down 300 mile days. Her water ballast keeps the motion comfortable, adding weight to smooth the waves and righting moment to ease the heel angles. It occurs to me that she would be perfect for the OSTAR or TWOSTAR.
My reading has bogged down this week, struggling with political philosophy. Three books attempt to round out points of view, one straddling the middle (A Conflict of Visions – Sowell), one
representing authoritarianism (A Theory of Justice – Rawls) , and one representing libertarianism (Anarchy, State and Utopia – Nozik). None of these are easy reads. Sowell is probably the clearest, but I don’t think he explains the authoritarian angle very well as that is not where his heart is. Rawls is tough, very verbose without conveying meaning. Nozik is rational to the extreme and I feel like I understand his arguments having read Atlas Shrugged – Rand. Super interesting the Rawls and Nozik were in the same discussion group. I am left with trying to find a better communicator to deeply understand the moral arguments for authoritarianism which I don’t have on board. So, I am likely to move on to more history soon. I have a two-volume biography on Stalin by Stephen Kotkin that I’m looking forward to.
One minor technical problem to report: I lost the bobstay attachment on the hull due to chafe. Just too much seawater working on it over the miles. It’s not significant, so I just tied it off.
sparrow 