Point of No Return

This photo of Ihana's chartplotter shows the track of our Gulf Stream crossing last monday.  The original intention was to continue on our Course To Steer of 322M; as we entered the strongest current of the northerly-flowing gulf stream, the set and drift would bring us farther north, so as to arrive at the Lake Worth inlet without changing our heading - and in the minimum time.

See previous posting, about the details of what happened to us. As you can see, mid-crossing was when the winds backed to the north and strengthened, making the crossing extremely unpleasant at best, and extremely dangerous at worst.

This happened just after we passed the Point of No Return - the point in the crossing where it would have been harder to turn back to Bimini then to continue on to Florida.

The course change is obvious on this track, as we took the shortest route and headed directly to Fort Lauderdale.  This got us out of the Gulf Stream the fastest, and since we had no way of telling how bad the conditions were going to get, the safest and smartest "course of action" (literally) was to abort Plan A = Lake Worth.

Note that the rhumb line directions and the courses to steer were pre-set and visible, for either destination.  Good planning.

According to Wikipedia: "The point of no return is the point beyond which one must continue on his or her current course of action because turning back is physically impossible, prohibitively expensive or dangerous. A particular irreversible action (e.g., setting off an explosion or signing a contract) can be a point of no return, but the point of no return can also be a calculated point during a continuous action (such as in aviation)."