The 4 AM radio session with Jim was our best yet, but nevertheless difficult due to the weak signals. Sooner or later we'll find that sweet spot of the right frequency and atmospherics.
At 6.30 AM I returned to bed and woke at 9 AM to find that the sky was clear with a brilliant sun through only a thin cloud cover, and there was a hint of wind. It was from the NW at about 7 knots and soon I had the jib partially rolled out doing 1-1.5 knots on course 210. It wasn't much but we were moving. The grib file predicted a slight backing and strengthening of the wind during the day so there was hope of better progress. We had drifted to 39S54 so I was confident that we'd limp across the lat 40S milestone sometime during the day.
I did some winch maintenance work. For a day or two I had noticed that the port sheet (forward) winch had a different movement when cranking in the low gear direction. This morning I had a look and the stainless steel cap was loose. I knew better than to just tighten it. I did that with the same winch on the way to Hawaii and when it came time to service the winch the cap would not come off. Fortunately I was in touch with a young welder named Lenny and he built a tool out of stainless steel which was in effect two long handles with the center fitting into the two slots of the cap. After several modifications we got the tool right and we managed to loosen the cap with Lenny standing on the middle of the tool to keep it from jumping out of the slots of the cap and me hitting one handle of the tool with a heavy hammer while putting force on the other. Later the agent in Australia explained that for some reason the company had used dissimilar metals, where the stainless steel cap was screwing into a part made of aluminium, and the dissimilar metals had caused galling. He told me that we were lucky to get the cap off. He shipped me a new part made out of brass but nevertheless I removed the cap and lubricated the threads with lanolin grease before tightening it. I did the same treatment on the three other cockpit winches which still have the aluminium components.
But tightening the cap did not remove the problem from the port sheet winch. With the greatest of reluctance I removed the drum and had a good look at what bearings and gears I could see. Nothing seemed out of order. There was one set of clutches and some bearings that I could not see further down but I was not game to take the winch completely apart without better preparation. I lubricated the gears and bearings that I could see using a small artist's brush then put the winch back together again, but the problem persisted. I would have to prepare an "operating theater" with my spares at hand (which I must dig out of storage), barriers draped over the rail to prevent loss of items overboard, and all of my tools, all on a calm day. In the meantime I hoped that the winch would hold together.
At noon we were at 39S57, 115W23 which gave us a n-n distance of only 19 miles. We were doing 1.5 knots on course 220, but I expected the wind to back.
After the noon report I put up the storm trysail. It was a good time to do it with the gentle wind, clear weather, and relatively calm sea. Fortunately the pre work had been done. The sail came out of the bag with two beautiful sheets and a tack line already attached - all custom fitted for the job. In La Paz John the rigger had done his work well. He had perfectly placed the halyard block up on the mast and the two large cleats that he had fitted at the working level were perfect for cleating off the halyard and tack line. Best of all was the success that he had had in aligning the two sections of the slide track. I was able to hoist up the sail with no snags at that join whatsoever. (Well done, John, and many thanks.) The tricky part was routing the sheets. I managed to do that without winding up with a tangle during the hoist but I had to make a subtle adjustment after the sail was up. The sheet has to pass in the gap of about 2 inches between the wind steering control lines. With the trysail up I had a total of 17 lines going to the cockpit: 2 jib sheets, 2 staysail sheets, 2 trysail sheets, 1 mainsail sheet, 1 jib halyard, 1 staysail halyard, 1 mainsail halyard, 1 roller furler line, 2 running backstays, 4 reefing lines. (Is there any wonder why I didn't want the Zodiac in the cockpit?) At the mast were the trysail halyard and 2 spinnaker halyards.
The trysail was built for this boat in 2008 and had never been used. It is a beautiful bright orange, heavy, well constructed sail and I look forward to good service from it for the rest of my voyage to Australia. The area of of the sail is approximately 11.5 sq meters, or 124 sq ft. Putting it up gave us a boost in speed which was difficult to quantify because after putting it up I fell off the wind some more putting the boat on a broad reach, giving us a heading of 195T at 2.1 knots. That's very modest but at least I don't have a banging boom.
Even though I expect to get better at managing the trysail I think that it will be best that I put the sail up during calm weather in anticipation of strong winds. Putting up that sail working alone in heavy winds would present problems, namely having the sail flogging like mad while I hoist it and before I can make it back to the cockpit to bring on the sheet. And I don't like the idea of running back and forth along the side deck in heavy weather with my mind focused more on getting the sail up than making sure that I don't fall overboard.
And then there is the issue of collecting rainwater. The best setup for that is the mainsail up with one reef, so somewhere down the track I'll have to make tricky calculations about whether there is prospect for good rains ahead in winds that are not too strong for the mainsail. If everything looks good then I'll have to put up the mainsail ahead of time to collect the rain. This need not happen often. One good downpour before the Horn and another around the Falklands would set me up beautifully.
While having lunch at the nav station I watched on the chart plotter Pachuca crossing the line of lat 40S at 20:09:32 GMT/UTC. Crossing the 10 degrees of latitude from 30S had taken 11 days, bearing in mind that we had done quite a bit of easting.
At 5 PM I visited the foredeck for a look around before settling in for the night and what a fortunate visit it was. While looking at the webbing that needs re stitching on the mainsail slide I noticed that a screw had partially backed out of one of the fittings that attaches a batten and hence sail to a slide. The mainsail has 5 battens. The forward end of each batten is sandwiched in between two plastic like pieces that are thru bolted with six bolts and nuts. On the lower batten one bolt was half backed out and two others were missing. On the next batten up one bolt was missing and two were completely loose. This was serious business because if one of these fittings fails the batten must be removed and the associated slide attachment to the mast is lost. I got a screw driver and found that every thru bolt on every batten needed a lot of tightening. I then went into the cabin with the loose bolt and went through my plastic boxes of nuts and bolts. A week earlier I had found one of the screws on deck and because it did not resemble anything to do with rigging I passed it off as probably something that one of the workmen on Pachuca had dropped. However, I made a mental note and put the bolt where I could find it, and indeed it was one of the batten bolts. I got very lucky and found other equivalent bolts and nuts that would fit into the recesses of the fittings. In the end every bolt was in place and very tight and all was well. That was a close one and could have ended badly. I'm learning everything the hard way but call it sailor's superstition, I'm convinced that I'm getting help. My task is to keep an open mind and listen.
At 6.30 PM we were still ambling along at 2.5 knots on course 200T with just the headsail and trysail. The wind had remained strong enough for sailing all day and I could not complain. We were at 40S12, creeping steadily into the Roaring Forties.
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