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My decision to put up the mainsail late yesterday turned out to be a very good call, but it was a near thing. At 2 AM I woke up to the occasional sound of the boom banging with the roll of the boat, which meant a weak wind. I got out of bed resigned to dropping the mainsail and putting the trysail back up in the hopes of eking out a knot or two of speed. When I got to the nav station I saw that instead of a 6 kt wind as I had expected it was closer to 9 knots. During the hour that I was up to receive the weather fax and listen to the news I watched the situation and decided to leave the sail up. The grib file indicated a slight strengthening of the wind coming soon (We're only talking about one knot more.) which gave me some hope.
I woke up at 7 AM to the sound of water rushing past the hull and the gentle hum of the wind charger. At the nav station I saw that the wind speed was up to 11 and 12 knots and we were making over 4 knots. We were headed south and with the stronger wind I was able to broaden our reach and at 9 AM I was having coffee as I watched with great pleasure the wind speed numbers jumping between 5.0 and 5.2 knots on a course of 150T. (I knew that this surge probably wouldn't last, but what a great start to the day!) My little mainsail gamble hand paid off and the trysail was still happily secured on the deck waiting for its next call.
The grib file frame for this time showed an interesting picture: the winds were all from the west and steadily increasing in speed moving from north to south. One degree to my north - 60 miles away - the speed was 8.7 kt. At my position the speed was 11.2 kt and 52 miles to the south it was 13.9 knots. Yes, one cannot take grib files that literally, but the principle was there: the farther south the better the winds. I had not planned to cross latitude 50S into what is known as the "Furious Fifties" until I was closer to the Horn in order to minimize our exposure to strong winds, but I was ready to go there now. I knew that I would be hammered by 2 or 3 gales or worse, but I figured that simply hove to I would still be making a good 2 knots in the strong current and wind.
It was a bright, clear, and crisp winter-like day (a cold front had passed over), and quite chilly by my standards. At 9 AM the cabin temperature was 57F (brrrr!)
At 10AM the sails started to fret. A big swell had started arriving from the south, no doubt from that low. I put the boat on a beam reach, increasing our apparent wind and more importantly meeting the swell more head on. That quieted things nicely. Fortunately we were still headed slightly east of south, at 165T.
I harvested my second batch of mung beans after two days of soaking. It was quite good, though not as sweet as my first batch. The next time I'll give the germination a boost by soaking the container in warm water after 6 hours.
Just before noon I put a lb of red kidney beans in the pressure cooker to soak over night. Success would mean variety and another source of protein.
At noon our position was 43S16, 112W37, giving us a n-n distance of 90 miles in the direction of 146T. We were now less than 1900 miles from the Horn. In the last 24 hours the barometer had risen 6 hPa to 1020. This was my third day of plotting on the next chart that was to a larger scale than the previous one of the SW Pacific, and covering the entire west coast of South America including Drake Passage. (Do not set off on a W-E rounding of the Horn without this chart!!! Not negotiable.)
I decided to take advantage of the good weather to top up the diesel tanks. It wasn't the ideal day in that the heavy swell from the south was causing a lot of roll. But the air was dry and there was no spray reaching the cockpit. It is best for the diesel to keep the tanks full, and besides, I wasn't sure of when I'd get my next opportunity to refuel. I brought a 28 liter (6 gal) container from the rail, put 75 ml of additive into the tank even though I knew that the diesel in the container had been treated, then started transferring fuel using a scrupulously bucket. I had put on 16.3 engine hours since the last tank fill so I expected the refill to require about 30 liters. The tank overflowed well before I emptied the container. I waited a few minutes to give the two fuel tanks a chance to equalize then put in another liter or two and once more the tank overflowed. My most pessimistic estimate is that it took 20 liters to fill the tank, yielding a consumption rate of only 1.23 liters per hour. Is is not far out of line from my previous calculation of 1.37 liters per hour. Most of the running of these latest 16.3 hours had been at only 1100 rpm. I should have about 90 liters of fuel remaining on deck, giving me about 73 engine hours for recharging the batteries @ 1100 rpm.
Afterwards I had a cockpit salt water bath from the neck down. Very bracing. I get the salt water by reaching over the side and waiting for a roll of the boat to fill the bucket. It is a safe procedure. Most of my weight remains in the boat and I keep a shoulder firmly into one of the 2" diameter legs of the cockpit frame. The bucket would not last long were I to throw it over the side with a lanyard attached to its handle.
As the afternoon progressed the wind veered and we began to head 190T, west of south. I considered dropping the mainsail and running more downwind with just the jib but the wind was so light - less than 10 knots - that I figured that the change would result in greatly reduced speed and lots of rolling. I could afford to run south a bit more and wait for a better opportunity to head east.
At 9PM we were still moving south, 197T at 3.7 knots.
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3 comments:
I don't think your Christmas will be merry this year, but I hope it'll be a safe Christmas with good wind.
I'll drink a Bacardi in your name.
I'll second that, with an egg nog and Captain Morgans
I wish you the same - maybe not merry as Arnold says, but happy, in that you are doing well and success will soon be yours. Happy New Year too.
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