Day 30 - Across 10 Degrees South

I reefed the mainsail yesterday at noon accepting an inevitable reduction in speed. I was willing to trade that for a gentler ride. But the wind had other ideas.

The first part of the evening was very good. After a brief lull at sunset the wind picked up and for several hours we found ourselves in a very nice groove between a good but not too strong wind and a sea that was not too rough. I watched two movies while the boat sailed itself due south at over 6 kt with amazing tranquility.

But near midnight the wind picked up and we had a rough ride all night. There was a lot of slamming of the hull, a lot of water over the cabin hatch, and I was pumping out the bilge (admittedly a shallow one) every 2 or 3 hours. At 8 AM I went topside, made sure that the headsails had survived the night OK, then eased the mainsheet to reduce the amount of heeling. Then for the next 20 minutes I watched the proceedings from the companionway and saw sustained apparent wind speeds of 22 and 23 kts, suggesting to me true wind speeds of 18 and 19 knots. The grib file had predicted stronger winds to 16.5 knots. At those wind speeds the boat wasn't over canvassed. A second reef isn't warranted until 24 kts at the minimum, and the headsails were as I described the day before.

You've got to be able to trust the hull in these rough conditions. Just as a frightened air traveler will freak out when he sees the airplane wing flexing and will try to jump out of his seat when he feels the landing gear thud into position, a timid sailor can drive himself closer to a frenzy with every blow to the hull. I haven't heard of any fiberglass hulls splitting under the stress of a pounding sea. As for Pachuca, her hull is not only extraordinary thick (because she was constructed before the boat builders learned how to cut corners) but is shaped with compound curves everywhere, making it extremely resistant to exterior stress. (Think of the compression strength of an egg.)

Our noon position was 10S02, 122W21, giving us a n-n distance of 136 miles. We had gained 2.3 degrees toward the south and had made the 10 degrees from the equator in only 5 days. I was amazed at the numbers. We were now south of the latitude of the Marquises and 1250 miles NNW of my new reference, Easter Island, at latitude 27S. I could expect the trade winds to hold up until at least 20S but expected to slow the boat down a bit.

Almost immediately after the noon report I did a reprise of the previous day and put in a second reef in the mainsail. I knew what the grib file and my own wind instrument were saying, but out there it felt like I was dealing with a 25 knot wind. I saw no need to push the boat hard. I expected the reliable trade winds for at least another 10 degrees, no bad weather was threatening me, I was through the worst of the south equatorial current, and I expected to still make good time under reduced sail. After the second reef the boat settled down to 6 knots and rode more comfortably. If conditions worsened my next step would be to roll in the headsail. I was rewarded for my efforts with a salt water shower . I heard the wave hit and thought "This is going to be a wet one." and so it was.

In the middle of the afternoon I made my way to the bow for a deck check. Clinging to the inner forestay I had a good look at the headsail and it looked fine and none the worse for the wear of the last few days. I could see that it was sheeted in a bit tight, choking off the slot between it and the staysail, and I rectified that back at the cockpit. The compass was showing a course of 180M, which translated to 190T given the deviation in this part of the ocean of 10E. Our COG was 195T, indicating to me that I was past any significant effects of the south equatorial current.

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