Day 41 - Poor Expectations The On The Move

This is the third day of dealing with the slack wind and drizzle under this band of weather that I'm having trouble escaping. It has actually been worse than the doldrums because the doldrums were less consistently bad - I would get long periods of good wind for sailing, even though it was to the SW and WSW. This morning I woke up to the same: totally overcast sky, drizzle bearing clouds as far as the eye could see, 7-8 kt wind not quite good enough for sailing, more drizzle ahead guaranteed to disrupt any sail plan that I might be able to put together. The drizzle is the worst of both worlds: enough to force me to wear wet weather gear (It is now to chilly to sail starkers.), but not enough to deliver a usable amount of potable water. And how I miss the contribution of the solar panels and wind charger. I've found that under these conditions running the engine one hour per day is not enough sustain my battery voltages. I've described this situation because it is a factual part of this experience and may be of assistance to anyone who follows. As far as my morale, stoicism is the word. That's sailing and one must take the bad with the good.

The wind dropped off again after dark yesterday so I was forced to drop the mainsail. I rolled in the headsail but left the staysail up because I had discovered that even with a very feeble wind and the sail flapping left and right with the roll of the boat, Jeff would somehow manage to keep the boat pointed beam on to the wind and making some way. So all night the boat dawdled to the SW at 1-2 kts, possibly aided by a current.

After breakfast I rolled out some headsail then brought up the mainsail to only the second reef. My battery bank was down to 12.1V so I immediately started the engine and I hand steered SSW at about 4 kts for a while, making sure that the sails stayed full. I am fortunate in that Jeff can steer the boat into a feeble wind when the boat is under engine power, so I set him up and left the boat to it. I ran the engine for 1.7 hours to gain ground as well as charge the batteries.

I reexamined the latest grib file and it indicates no relief for the next 24 hours. The system seems to be following me south. Had I been one more degree to the south I would have escaped it. Unfortunately I had an incomplete picture of the situation because I had missed the night's weather fax due to the alarm clock needing a fresh battery.

I've been getting good information on Matt's position from Brenda and yesterday Mark. Yesterday at my noon he was about 130 miles almost exactly due south of me. If I have plotted his positions correctly he made an impressive 230 miles to the SE in 2 days. Given my situation I expect our separation to increase over the next few days.

At noon (1800 GMT) our position was 27S38, 123W09. Somehow we had manage to make a n-n distance of 55 miles and had moved south 0.9 of a degree. It must must be due to a combination of motoring (maybe 5 miles), current, and the sailing in fits and starts. I noted that I was now south of Easter Island, which was 750 miles to the east. From the literature that I'd read about these passages Easter Island had become in my mind the gateway to the Horn, and something that I would celebrate as I passed by. But being so far to the west of it took the edge out of the event for me. Nevertheless I was south of it and that much closer to the westerlies and the final run to the Horn. The dream had become that little bit more real.

To my surprise the wind that had shown weak signs of life just before the noon report gained strength and soon it was up to 13 knots and we were making a handsome 4.5 knots to the SW. By 3.30 PM it had backed and strengthened and we were making 5.5 kts to the SSW. This was all contrary to the grib file prediction but I was not asking any questions. I rolled in a bit of headsail to protect it and quiet down the boat for a loss of half a knot in speed. At 5 PM the wind had picked up to more than 22 knots and we were moving along at 6-6.5 knots. I rolled reduced the headsail several times until it was completely rolled up in and the even stronger wind that had backed 30 degrees. But that was all part of the disruptions associated with squalls. The wind soon veered and settled down to 13 kts and I rolled out some headsail. I didn't mind dealing with variable winds as long as we had winds. We had just crossed latitude 28S and I was hopeful that we would be able to keep moving south throughout the night.

At 6 PM I prepared the last pressure cooker beef stew while listening to a Dan Fogelberg album and the boat ambled along at 4 knots. I was anxious to finish off the red meat because I had been cutting corners on running the refrigerator and I didn't want to risk spoiling the meat. In the stew I threw in 3 onions, a half a packet of lentils, and a packet of dried peas purchased at Coles Supermarket in Australia probably in 2008. After cleaning up I checked on the latest batch of yogurt keeping warm on the engine cover and under a beanie. While doing this I looked up and saw through the hatch the first patch of blue sky in 2 days. Things were looking better.

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