Day 55 - Fog, Drizzle, Disappointing Wind

The evening grib file forecast favourable winds for the next two days, which lifted my spirits. I knew that I would have to gybe the boat during the night. The wind would veer to the north and the 3 AM frame captured an abrupt shift of wind direction where E of 116W the wind would be strong from the north and west off 116W it would be strong from the west. I interpreted this to mean that the effect of the high to the north would be giving way to the low to the south. The barometer had dropped 2 points during the late afternoon. I went to bed thinking about how I would gybe the headsail which was rolled out to almost a number 2 and I would want to protect from heavy flogging in the strong wind.

At 12.30 AM I woke up and checked the boat. We were heading due west. The wind had strengthened to 20 knots and had shifted to the north early so it was time to gybe. There is a psychological barrier to be crossed in making the transition from the warm and cosy and safe comfort zone of the cabin to the wind and waves and drizzle and darkness and perils of the deck. I suited up, turned on the deck light, put the head torch on, then went out to the cockpit. I switched on the compass light then disengaged Jeff so that the boat would swing to starboard from the broad reach into the wind. While this was happening I brought on the leeward sheet of the trysail to prepare it for the gybe. Then I went in front of the binnacle to bring in enough headsail to allow it to clear the inner forestay during the gybe. In the strong wind this required a combination of turning the wheel by hand to put the boat harder into the wind, easing off a bit of sheet, waiting for the flutter of the luffing headsail, then pulling in a couple more rolls of headsail with the furler line. After several iterations the headsail was ready. Then I took the wheel and steered the boat to the port from NW to W to SW and to S where the wind was abaft, then we crossed it for the gybe. The trysail tacked itself and I let fly its weather sheet which was easy to do because it was wound around the spinnaker winch next to the wheel. It began to draw perfectly, and we were now on a viable port tack. I let the wheel go and went forward to ease the weather sheet on the backwinded headsail and bring on its lee sheet. Both sails were now in order. Back behind the wheel I set the course to SE, which put us on a broad reach, set up Jeff to the new wind direction off the port quarter, and the gybe was completed. I found that the trysail and the small area of headsail were ample for the conditions. We were making 4.5 knots in the direction that I wanted to go, the boat was moving very smoothly, and that was good enough for the rest of the night. Perhaps in daylight I might put up the staysail. I decided to stay up for the 2.30 AM weather fax. I made a cup of hot chocolate and listened to Radio New Zealand because ABC and BBC were not yet up in the frequencies that I use.

The 2.30 AM weather fax showed no discernible change in the synoptic situation in my part of the ocean.

At 5 AM the wind veered back to the NW, contrary to the grib file prediction, and I had to gybe back to the original (starboard) tack. Fortunately it was an easy operation because the wind had moderated to about 12 knots and the headsail did not have to be rolled in. I had to expect more wind changes and I needed to put up more sail, so thank goodness that dawn was only an hour away.

I woke up at 8.30 AM to find that the wind had not altered and we were still headed SE at a modest 2.2 knots. After breakfast I altered course 20 degrees to move us from a broad reach to just aft of a beam reach. I then hoisted the staysail and let out enough headsail to slightly overlap the staysail. This boosted out speed to a modest 2.8 knots on course SSE, but we were dealing with a breeze below 12 knots. I would have liked more east component to our heading, but that opportunity would surely come later. The storm trysail had proven to be very useful, well behaved, and easy to manage in these wind conditions and had become available to me just in time.

At 11.30 AM the wind began to falter and the sails began to flog. I went topside to find the boat surrounded by fog with visibility less than 2 miles. I decided that this was a good time for an engine run. I had not run the engine the previous day and on this day I could not expect much help from the solar panels or the wind charger. I rolled in the headsail, started the engine, then put the boat on a beam reach to keep the trysail and staysail quiet. I hand steered during the 90 minutes of the engine run during which time it began to drizzle. So it was a pretty miserable day which I took amazingly well, probably because I was warm and dry under my wet weather gear. Under my hood was my wool beanie, and I was wearing gloves. It proved to be good timing on the engine run because it carried the boat through the sag in wind speed and afterwards we were able to keep sailing due south with trysail, staysail, and a bit of headsail at 2.5 knots. It wasn't very fast and the direction wasn't the best, but we were sailing and going deeper into the Roaring Forties which so far had been the Murmuring Forties.

Noon found us at 40S57, 115W08, giving us a n-n distance of only 61 miles. The wind had slackened and we were barely managing to sail.

I woke up at 5 PM after a very long nap and found that the wind had backed a few degrees and strengthened 2 or 3 knots. I eased the boat another 20 degrees and soon we were moving at 2.4 knots to the SE. It's amazing how a nap can improve things.

While lighting the oven for my last bread bake I got a good look at my face in the reflection of the oven door, and it was not pretty. My beard was little more than a big white ball with little tufts of black up near the cheeks. Hair was curling into my lips, long black hairs were coming out of my nose, tufts of black hair poking out of my ears, and the black and white eyebrows were invading my eyes. It looked awful, like ... well ... a barbarian. Fortunately over the years I had put together a modest hair care toolkit and I got to work. It took 5 new AA batteries, two electric cutters with different sized heads, the electric trimmer with the round head, and a pair of good stainless steel trimming scissors, but I got the job done by going over and over the terrain and was impressed with the results. I know now that I'll be able to make landfall looking reasonably presentable. I'm not sure how I'll trim my top hair. I've got a set of 110V cutters and if they can be supported by the inverter maybe I can give myself a US Marine like close cut. I went to the cockpit and shook out all of the hairs from the towel and my clothing then celebrated with a cup of tea and a muesli bar. I've been very restrained with the muesli bars, averaging only one per day.

At 8 PM I had to give up. You cannot sail a boat of this size in these lumpy waters with a 5 knot breeze. Frustrating. I left the trysail and staysail up sheeted hard hoping that some wind would come up during the night.

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