Since Friday, Challenger has been flying with the way point set to the North East in an attempt to effectively fly across the westward jet shown by the OSCAR Product.
The current however has been pummeling the glider, and over the course of the weekend we went from seeing the fastest speeds of the mission to the slowest. At the Friday evening surfacing, the glider had flown 28km in 13 hrs while at this morning’s surfacing just over 4 km of progress was made.
This slow in progress is due to the rotation of the current, from nearly due north on Sunday (354˚) , to just North of West today (284˚)
The way point has now been set to 35˚S 11˚30E to try and get a better angle on the current.
GLOSEA Forecast Feb 15
RTOFS Forecast output Feb 15
OSCAR Forecast Output Feb 14
HYCOM Forecast output Feb 15
Copernicus Forecast output Feb 15
The KMZ’s for the latest model outputs can be found on the RU 29 Diagnostics Page here: http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/gliders/29/ under the heading “Project Links and KMZs”
Over the next few days we will continue to aggressively change the way point as we try and get Challenger out of this strong current and further North so we can make our final approach towards Cape Town
Force Wind Sea & Honor