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Total Run This Leg:
819.6
Nautical Miles
Total Average Speed: 4.09 Knots
Hours / Days This Leg: 200.3 Hours / 8.34 Days
Distance To Go This Leg: 1,276.9 Nautical Miles
Estimated Time Of Arrival: The new ETA for the Cape Henlopen Sea Buoy,
depends upon the progress of events in the next few days. A regular assessment of
this tentative ETA, and any changes to it, will be reported as it becomes available from
the Captain.
Present Course: The Sea Victory and the USS New Jersey are jogging on an
easterly course along the Southern coast of Cuba, awaiting arrival of the tug Mariner from
Lake Charles, Louisiana. Earlier today, the tug was reported on her way to a
rendezvous with the Sea Victory making 13 Knots.
Winds: Easterly at 20 - 22 Knots
Seas & Swells: Combined at 10 Feet
Barometric Pressure: 1015 Millibars
Air Temperature: 81 Degrees
Sea Temperature: 81 Degrees
Visibility: 10 Miles +
Skies: Scattered Clouds
Sea Floor: Ocean depths beneath the USS New Jersey at this point are
1,652 Meters, or 5,419 Feet. Panama Canal
Transit: October 16 - 21 / Balboa Pier 14 - 15, Miraflores and Pedro Miguel
Locks, the Gaillard Cut, Gamboa, Lake Gatun, and the Gatun Locks, and Cristobal. USS
New Jersey's clearance into the Caribbean Sea / Atlantic Ocean was completed at 11:34
a.m., and her mark for the commencement of the Cristobal, Panama - Philadelphia, PA Third
Leg was passed at 11:42 a.m., Thursday, October 21.
Distance Of Second Leg:
September 21 -
October 15 / Long Beach, CA to Balboa Anchorage, Panama: 2,948.7 Nautical Miles, the
longest leg of New Jersey's homecoming voyage.
Total Average Speed Second Leg: 5.18 Knots
Distance Of First Leg: September 12 - 21 / Bremerton, WA to Long Beach,
CA: 1,193.6 Nautical Miles from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to Long Beach, CA
anchorage.
Total Average Speed First Leg: 5.54 Knots
Position: The USS New Jersey is now 18.5
Nautical Miles from Cabo San Antonio, Cuba, on the Western extremity of the 600 Mile long
island nation. Captain Ogaard at this hour began "detention," referring to
Sea Victory's having ceased forward progress while awaiting the arrival of the tug Mariner
to accept the transfer of the USS New Jersey.
An Unwelcome, but necessary, Jogging Detention
The USS New Jersey and the Sea Victory this
evening are "jogging" on an Easterly track South of Cuba in a combined sea and
swell of 10 Feet, with winds of 20 - 22 Knots, keeping things stirred up quite nicely here
in the Yucatan Channel.
Captain Ogaard has reached his farthest northern point in
the Channel, and now is in a holding pattern - "jogging" or transiting slowly
into the weather just to maintain the best possible towing conditions - while awaiting
arrival tomorrow of the hand-off tug Mariner.
The weather has picked up some since yesterday when hopes
for relief in this area were higher. How it will be in the morning and through
tomorrow remains to be seen. The Captain obviously hopes for the best possible sea
conditions for the transfer of the Battleship, but will deal with the circumstances as
they come. He's seen the worst of the worst in his long career.
A tropical storm has developed well to the south of New
Jersey's position, but the seas and winds in this part of the Caribbean Sea seem related
to forces North of Cuba.
Katrina, the newly named Tropical Storm, is currently
threatening an area the USS New Jersey passed a few days ago, some 650 miles to the South
of her current position. The National Weather Service in Miami has issued a tropical
storm warning for the East coast of Nicaragua, North of Bluefields, to the Nicaragua /
Honduras border. It is unlikely to affect the USS New Jersey's position at this
writing.
Saturday will bring more maneuvering into an area here
that will maximize the opportunity for the best transfer of the Battleship. Once
that has occurred, it will mean full-speed to Miami for the Sea Victory, and through the
Yucatan Channel into the Gulf of Mexico for the USS New Jersey with the Mariner.
Submitted by Bob Wernet onboard the Sea Victory.
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