Day 59 - Heading East with Whisker Pole

At 9 PM I received my daily grib file covering the following two days. It predicted that the wind would veer toward the north throughout the night. The boat was already headed SSW and I wouldn't countenance heading even further to the west throughout the night. To tack would have put me heading east or maybe ENE. So at the very last light I dropped the mainsail and the staysail and headed downwind with just a bit of jib. As I knew expected our speed was cut in half and we began to experience regular bouts of heavy rolling, but at least we had gained 40 degrees on the wind and were headed SSE. There would be a point before midday when I would put the boat on port tack as the wind veered to the north. When it veered enough I would bring up either the mainsail or the trysail. At least I could go to sleep knowing that we were making some easting.

I was up at 7.30AM to find a disappointing situation. The wind had not veered, still coming from the ENE, nor had it strengthened as predicted. After breakfast I gybed the boat which was easy to do since I had only a small bit of headsail out, and managed to establish a course of 0100, about 30 degrees off the wind coming from the aft port side. If I tried to steer any closer to the wind the big swell would overcome the sail.

I had not run the engine the previous day to see if the generous sunlight would be enough to tide the batteries over night, and I learned that the answer was no. At 2AM the house bank was down to 11.9V and I had to use the crossover switch to transfer power from the starter bank to the house bank. I started the engine in the morning soon after the gybe, with the batteries again down to 11.9V. The drive of the engine even at a low 1100 rpm was enough to reduce the apparent wind sufficiently to collapse the headsail so I motored with bare poles directly downwind on course 110T. I was forced to keep the rpm and speed down lest the apparent wind drop to the point where Jeff could not continue steering the boat as he was amazingly doing down wind, with an apparent wind of less than 10 knots, and under engine. The plan was to motor for 2 hours which would charge up the battery, warm the cabin, get me another 7 miles downwind, and buy time to give the wind a chance to veer and strengthen - maybe.

Sailing downwind is not my strongest point of sail as a sailmaster. I don't like running with the mainsail out. I've never tried poling out the headsail but it seemed to me that with the rolling and light winds more stress would be put on the sail since it would be slatting back and forth hard instead of collapsing. Nevertheless I might be forced to try it. I considered the asymmetric cruising spinnaker. It would take a full hour of hard work to clear out the V berth area, pull the chute out of the sail locker, then try to cram the damaged headsail into the sail locker because there would be no room above the sail locker for both sails. At best it would be a daytime sail, and on this day I was particularly reluctant because it was overcast with rain clouds on the horizon. I had never considered using a spinnaker in the Roaring Forties but pushed to desperation I would do it. That left me hoping for a stronger wind. I can run downwind fairly well with a strong wind.

Some minor equipment issues. My head torch collapsed last night for the last time and I've brought a spare one into use. Also, I noticed that one of the two lights that illuminate the compass card has gone out. I have spares and will await a calm clear day to make the replacement because it is a tricky procedure. Those lights do not last very long. It is an old compass and undoubtedly uses incandescent globes instead of LEDs.

Conditions in the cockpit didn't look too bad so I decided to do something constructive during the engine run and replace that blown compass light. The time passed quickly, but I must have spent over 2 hours on the job because after putting away the tools I shut down the engine and saw that I had run it 4 hours. That was by far the longest engine run since La Paz but it was well justified given the condition of the batteries, the wind, etc. After shutting down the engine I rolled out half of the headsail and put us on a port broad reach. The wind had veered 10 or 15 degrees and had strengthened by a knot or two and the sail was able to cope with the rolls. We were making 2.5 knots to the east and I was hoping that the wind would keep veering. The gloomy overcast of the early morning had been replaced by brilliant blue sky and I was feeling a bit better about things.

Our noon position was 44S18, 112W10, giving us a n-n distance of 65 miles to the SSE.

An hour later the house bank had stabilized to a satisfactory 12.8V. The wind had strengthened a bit and I responded by letting out more headsail and our average speed went up to 3.3 knots still to the east. During lunch it occurred to me that I should be able to find two small LED lights for the compass. Wiring them in and fixing them to the inside of the dome would be little problem. I had one spare compass light remaining and I hoped that it would see me through to Australia.

At 5 PM I visited the foredeck for a good look around. I sat comfortably astride the soft Zodiac as though it were a saddle and enjoyed watching the bow cutting through the water. Then my eye caught sight of the whisker pole, the one that I had purchased almost at the last moment in Berkovich's boat yard, La Paz. I told myself that I'd have to try it out one day. Without any particular intentions I freed the lower mast ring of some lines then pushed it up to the next ring up. Then I freed the whisker pole from the deck and started fooling around with it - checking the action of the locks at the ends, how to line up the extension buttons, that sort of thing. Then I had a go at it. I foolishly extended the pole almost full length, forgetting that the headsail was only 2/3 rolled out. I hooked the outer end on the jib sheet but no matter how much I tried I could not push the pole out far enough to lock the inboard end into the mast ring. I decided to go to the cockpit to ease the sheet. The outer beak of the pole seemed secure on the jib sheet but I wasn't sure that the latch was closed. As a precaution I tied a few loops around the middle of the pole using the end of a spinnaker halyard. I went back to the cockpit, eased the sheet, the headsail started flogging, the end of the pole jumped off the sheet, and the pole slid along the opposite rail and into the water. I was now deep in Keystone Kops territory. The pole was now astern of the boat following like a big metallic fish and the only thing between it and Davey Jones' locker was my hastily tied loops of halyard. I started hauling fast. Soon the end of the pole appeared out of the water and I pulled it aboard. I told myself that I shouldn't quit and had to get something up, just some little baby step of success to get me started on this road of whisker poles. I collapsed the pole almost to the minimum length and clipped the outer end to the jib sheet, which wasn't too difficult to do, and making sure that the latch of the beak was closed. Then after a lot of pushing and fighting with the jib sheet I managed to get the inboard end of the pole latched onto the mast ring. At the cockpit I hauled in the jib sheet and the result looked pretty credible. The mast ring could have been higher, but the pole length was about right and the sail was being held out and billowing beautifully. I began to see boat speeds of over 4 knots instead of just over 3 knots. I also found that I could go off the wind another precious 5 to 10 degrees. I had been fretting about our downwind performance and maybe I had had the solution all along, thanks to Bob Carrol's suggestion about a whisker pole back in La Paz. But there had to be an easier way to put up the pole and I was sure that I'd get better at it in time.

I had been planning to have a tequila sundowner as a Christmas toast to my Australian friends on the other side of the international date line, where it was Christmas Day. This whisker pole baby step added a nice edge to the occasion. Tomorrow would be Christmas on this side of the date line and of course I would have another sundowner to the great people that I've met in that triangle from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest (including Vancouver), down the west coast of the USA, to La Paz.

At 7 PM the pressure cooker was working on a mixture of kidney beans, lentils, corn, and a flavour cube. I was feeling pretty mellow and amiable with the tequila sundowner under my belt. The boat was still moving at 4.5 knots on a heading of 105T. The wind had not veered as predicted but at least I was headed south of east. Given the synoptic situation, where I was in the westerly flow of winds between a high to the north and a low to the south, I was expecting the wind to last throughout the night. The 9 PM grib file would tell me more.

Hic!

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