The Ocean so Deep

Yesterday we left the Azores for our last stretch of sea-voyage towards Trinidad. On this picture you'll see our towing winch almost empty, all our tow wire is paid out now and the Hermod is 1350 meter astern of us. All together we have 1400 meters of wire on our drum and what you see here is the last 50 meters. The friction of this last 50 meter on the drum is so big, that it won't be pulled off by itself. As long as we hold the brake on the drum, it won't slip.
We are doing this because of the approaching Hurricane area ahead of us, needing all the catenary in the wire we can get. We are not afraid that our tow wire will touch the seafloor, the ocean is more than 4000 meter deep here. Tomorrow I will tell you more about this area and the consequenses of transiting it now in this period. By the way: everyone with a sharp eye can see the sihouette of the Hermod far astern of us.