The wind became steadily weaker and at midnight I was forced to drop all sails. 6 knots of wind simply isn't enough to keep the sails full. Now that the boat lay ahull she rolled hard so that I had an uncomfortable sleep rocking in my bunk and listening to the cacophony of clinking and thumping as various items slid or swung side to side.
At 6 AM I woke to the hum of the wind charger, indicating that there was enough wind for sailing. The boat lay square to the wind, as she always does when laying ahull, be it gentle breeze or gale. Soon I was running directly south at over 5 kt with jib out before a 15 kt northerly, but that died too quickly and soon I as making 3 kt with a fretting headsail. That meant that I had to face the spinnaker.
It took me two hours of difficult work but I finally got the kite up without any disasters. I started off with the resolution to not run the engine to assist me with the boat's heading because of the risk of fouling the propeller with a stray line. Because of the light wind, use of the mainsail to blanket the spinnaker during the hoist was out of the question. During the operation the jib was constantly fretting and threatening to clout me on the head, the narrow curved deck was slippery with ropes and the spinnaker that I had laid along the deck, and of course there was the constant rolling. The big ally I had was the autopilot. Eventually I rolled in the jib hoping that the boat would still make enough headway for the autopilot to steer us downwind. I got lucky and that part worked OK.
The big challenge is to avoid crossing lines. I am accustomed to having the sheets outside of everything as they pass through to the turning blocks at the stern. But for me the big trap is the snuffer lines. On my first hoist of the sock I could see that tack of the sail incorrectly passed through the snuffer lines and both sheets had to be rerouted. Above I could see that the spinnaker sock kept wrapping around the inner forestay as the boat rolled about. I dropped the spinnaker back on the deck, deciding that it just wasn't safe enough to try. But then I looked at everything on the deck thinking that I was almost there, a lot was at stake, and if I didn't do it now I'd never do it. I rerouted the tack and sheet lines then hoisted the sock back up, trying to work in rhythm with the roll of the boat. After a final check and a quick prayer I hoisted the sock ring. Fortunately I had set the tack and sheet lines at about the right length and the spinnaker deployed more or less OK. After a bit of fiddling with the sheet and tack line everything settled down nicely.
I'd like to say that the boat began to rocket along, but all we were making was about 2.7 kt on an apparent wind of about 5 kt. But at least we were moving, in the right direction, and I wasn't flogging my headsail to death.
This was the first time that I had ever flown a spinnaker alone and I've got Bob Carroll and our sea trials a few weeks ago to thank for that. Assuming that I manage to bring down the chute tonight without drama this new tool could save me many days of sailing in my quest for the SE trade winds south of the equator, which seems far away.
At noon I had made only 70 miles in the previous 24 hours. The predictions are for 5-7 kt northerlies for the next few days, which suggests slow going.
At 4.30 PM we were at 20N36, 111W20. The wind had picked up slightly and we were still headed south at over 3 kt. The Revillagigedo Islands were 100 miles ahead.
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