Day 65 - Oblique Sailing, Oblique Estimate

It was a rough but OK night. The wind was stronger than I had expected, with bouts in the high 20's. I had a bit more headsail than I would have liked, but I never saw the boat speed exceed 6 knots and the sail looked OK when I checked it through the cabin hatch using a spotlight. (The deck light is on the fritz.) But all night (and so far this morning) we were in huge seas and under a constant barrage of big waves slamming into the starboard side of the boat.

The cabin is getting damper every day. Whenever a big volume of water sweeps over the hatches they both drip - not a lot, just a few drips, but it adds up over time. The forward hatch is an otherwise excellent Maxwell with four clamps instead of the usual two that Arnold and I installed in New Zealand. But even as we were installing it I noticed that the rubber seal was not molded for the hatch but appeared to be a straight one that had been bent around the corners, where there were wrinkles. The main hatch is the original Lewmar. It drips only in very heavy weather and I don't think that it is worth replacing - and as I learned from the Maxwell, even a new hatch can drip.

There is dripping into the middle of the cabin from the two Dorade vents that are normally excellent but give problems in very heavy weather. Some of this moisture seems to work its way along the ceiling causing a bit of dripping from the corners above the windows and onto the aft half of the bunks.

Water works its way from the companionway along the ceiling and drips occasionally on the nav table.

Some of the dripping could be from condensation from my breathing and the 8 or 10 kettles of water that I boil a day, not to mention the meals that I prepare.

I've noticed a bit of moisture along the side of the starboard quarter berth section. It could be coming in from the "seabird" vent that I blocked up with plastic in tape. It does not appear to be serious and has not affected the cargo.

Then there is the water that I bring in with my wet clothes.

Overall it isn't as big a problem as it may sound. After all, my food stores are dry, most of my clothes are dry, my vital electronic and electrical equipment is intact, and I sleep in warm and dry bedding. I am not particularly upset because this boat has been under huge assaults from the sea.

I had noticed at 2.30 AM that the boat was headed a bit more south than I would have liked. This morning I had a close look at the wind numbers on the chart plotter and could see that there was room for sailing more downwind. I suited up and went into the cockpit to (1) adjust Jeff to run more downwind (2) roll in a little bit of headsail (3) start the engine. When I got a good look at the sail from the cockpit I could see that there really wasn't that much sail out and as usual I had magnified the danger in my head during the night. Nevertheless I decide to roll in a bit of sail and instead of rounding up to the wind to luff the sail, thereby exposing the boat to broadsides from the big swells, I made the adjustment to Jeff to run close to the wind and coordinated the pulls on the roller line with the boat rolls and slight fluttering of the leech of the sail. This worked fine.

Then I started the engine. It would be a 2-hour run because for 2 days there had been no sunlight on the solar panels and the wind charger was out of action. Of course I welcomed the heat in the cabin.

It looked like another front had passed over us. The sky was clearing and the air crisp. It had been a rough night but the n-n number was going to be pretty good.

At mid morning I baked my first loaf of bread in 5 or 6 days. I really didn't feel like kneading the dough in the rough conditions but I did have a craving for buttered bread.

At noon we were at position 48S34, 100W21, giving us a n-n distance of 102 miles in the direction of 117T. We were 1320 miles from the Horn and 40 miles NE of Matt's position 6 days earlier.

At 1 PM I went to the mast to have a look around. Everything seemed to be in order, including the broken forestay that I had tied to the mast. The Zodiac was firmly in place and so were the diesel containers, most of which were empty. The boat had been hit by many braking waves but most if not all must be impacting the hull rather than the deck.

At 2 PM I gybed. The wind had veered and strengthened. Jeff was having trouble steering on the new tack and I felt that I had too much sail out anyway so I rolled in to leave maybe 50 sq ft of headsail. A small amount of sail seems sufficient with this boat when running before a strong wind and a heavy following sea. The boat was averaging 5 knots, aided no doubt by the current. The wind was supposed to be all over the place this night and I expected to do several gybes before dawn.

Dawn, by the way is early. Last night when I put my head down at 3 AM I noticed through the hatch that the sky was beginning to lighten. Last light is after 9.30 PM, so roughly speaking we're experiencing 6 hours of darkness and 18 hours of light.

While setting the new course I looked at the compass and had one of those Oh Oh moments. In the morning I had noticed spot of oily glister on the cockpit floor. Compass oil crossed my mind but I made the easier but reasonable conclusion that some of the diesel oil that I had spilled during the last fuel transfer hand become dislodged. Wrong. On top of the compass there was now a bubble about an inch in diameter. It was possible that the compass was now slowly losing its oil but I wouldn't know what to do about it. Time would tell.

Later in the afternoon I did some "What If" thinking and one useful outcome was that I now store both of my backup computers in individual clothes drawers. If, heaven forbid, we suffer a serious knockdown or rollover it is doubtful that the primary Toshiba laptop on the navigation table would survive, but the two backups would, and they contain copies of Airmail3 (Sailmail), C-Map, and other vital software. The chart plotter, HF radio, Pactor modem, and spare GPS's are securely mounted and should survive. Of course if I become aware of a dangerous storm approaching I'll put the navigation computer safely away and take other precautions.

This will be a day of zig zag sailing due to the changing wind. At the moment we are headed east. Later we'll gybe and head SSE. I'll probably sail over 100 miles but the Distance Made Good will not be near that - 80 miles if I'm lucky. If I stick my neck out and assume that I close in on the Horn at the rate of 80 miles per day that would put me round the Horn in 16 days, or January 15.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my friends in Canada, USA, and La Paz.

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