Sunday, February 26, 2012
As earlier reported there are two 44066 buoys drifting out in the middle of the Atlantic; one is the latest still transmitting and the other went silent a year ago. I don't know the last time that this has occurred in the NDBC program with two buoys breaking off the same area and drifting along similar lines towards Europe.
I used the Google image from last year and created a pushpin for the latest position.
You can see both the new 44066 26 Feb 2012 and the 44066 24Jan 2011 with the X next to the yellow pushpin icons on the Google map below. The Current position today has the drifting buoy in 61 degree water and fighting 25 foot waves and gusts to 43mph for part of today.
We will see if she survives the winds and seas which tormented and eventually took down the first 44066 buoy last January. The new buoy is about 700 miles from its mooring near the Tip of the Hudson. Last year the other buoy went dark about 850 miles away. The current buoy latitude is along the 38th line and last year's was close to this line as well. Both have been sucked into the Gulf Stream and subject to the Westward movement of the currents which predominately head towards
the Azores.
Interestingly, if you read the recent story of the Regulator that had been swamped 3 years off of Cape Cod it was found about a month ago on the North Coast of Spain! It traveled 3 years before making landfall! It was covered with barnacles and was stripped by the severe weather of any instrumentation. See story:
http://www.regulatormarine.com/tales-sdouglas.html
So who knows where this one will land.
If she stays alive for a while longer I may run some kind of contest asking for readers to guess the lat/lon where she might stop transmitting or the spot where she will make landfall. Anyone wanting to donate a cool prize, jump in.
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