Day 49 - The Westerlies and Doing It Rough

Just before 9 PM I took advantage of the last of the daylight to put in the second reef. Just as well because we had a rough night of winds over 20 knots and reaching 30 knots during squalls. The boat moved OK at 4-5 knots, and going to 5.5 knots during the surges of wind, but I've got to worry about something and last night it was for the mainsail and staysail under stress hour after hour. I looked at the sails in the morning light and they looked OK. I had been sailing within the guidelines which call for changing from the double reefed mainsail to the trysail at 30 knots and taking the staysail beyond 30 knots. It looked like I had found the westerlies given that I had crossed latitude 35S and was dealing with a howling west wind from a deep low further south. I was determined to put up the trysail at first opportunity and to get used to managing it and work out the procedure for alternating between it and the mainsail. I was taken by surprise by the strong wind. It wasn't until I got the latest grib file later in the evening that I saw the prediction of what to expect. According to the grib file the wind would abate somewhat during the afternoon and become moderate before dark.

The boat took a lot of water over the deck, resulting in nuisance drips from the two main Dorade vents and the cabin hatch. More serious water was entering through the main hatch. Whenever a big sheet of water passed through that hole in the spray dodger it would hit the sliding hatch from the side and the water would work its way into the sliding channel of the hatch and out the other side and into the companionway and cabin. There is nothing that I will ever be able to do about that because of the design of the hatch, which is pretty standard as far as I can tell. The real fix is to avoid sailing in heavy weather and of course to repair the spray dodger. This is where the shower curtain between the companionway and navigation table has come into its own, protecting the laptop and other important equipment from a salt water shower.

At noon our position was 35S26, 118W29, giving us a n-n distance of 97 miles to the SE. We had moved another 1.3 degrees to the south and seemed to be in the grip of the westerlies. We were now south of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago de Chile. In fact we were now south of every South American country except Chile and Argentina. I made it to be about 2400 miles to the Horn. Cabo San Lucas, Mexico was 3500 miles to the NNE.

Now that we were in the latitudes of the westerlies there seemed no point in continuing the chronicle of our progress to the south. According to Ocean Passages the name of the game now was to make directly for the Horn. On the other hand, I've decided to begin to record the barometric pressure 4 times a day. Being caught by surprise by this latest low pressure event reminded me that I cannot rely solely on external weather reports and must monitor my own local conditions.

The grib file was spot on in its wind predictions. The wind began to die down slowly in the early afternoon and by 5.30 PM it had backed and decreased to 17 knots. Hardening of the sails put Pachuca on a course of 120T doing about 3 knots into a falling sea. The grib file prediction for the next 24 hours looked very good, with moderate winds veering back to the west, allowing me to sail more to the south. After a rough 24 hours of sailing I was looking for a quieter and more relaxing time. I had left La Paz thinking that my principal worries would be falling overboard and rogue waves. In fact my principal worry had become equipment failure. A night like the previous one with the wind howling, the boat plowing through the rough seas, and the rigging and sails under stress had me under stress all night.

My electrical power situation had improved. I had been noticing for several days that the refrigerator had become much less demanding, no doubt due to the cooler weather and maybe also because it was now only half full. Between the wind charger producing good power for the previous 24 hours in the hard wind and the day's partial sun the house bank voltage was at 12.4 in the afternoon and I really did not need to run the engine. However, I thought that this provided me with an opportunity to stop scraping the bottom with the battery voltage and to start keeping it up well above the minimum. Besides, it would be nice to run the heater and dry the cabin out a bit. Two hours after the engine run the house bank was at 12.6 V.

In 6 hours the barometer had gone up one HPa. (A HPa is very similar to a millibar.)

At 7 PM I rolled out some headsail and soon we were doing an easy 4-4.5 knots over a calmer sea. This was more my idea of sailing.

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