The Horn was 120T from my position and we had sailed all night at 160T, 40 degrees off the ideal. The problem was that I could not sail too close to the wind behind me because at, say, 20 degrees off the wind one of those big waves would soon corkscrew the boat, back winding the sail, and heaving us to beam on to the wind until I could free Jeff. Forty degrees off the wind was the best I could do and with a tacking spread of 80 degrees a gybe would have put us on course 80-90T. Yes, that would be no farther off target than the present course - maybe even slightly closer - but comforting as it would feel to get closer to the continent I felt that I would be better off continuing down into the 50's latitudes where the current would be stronger and would branch to the south instead of the north as we approached the continent. Besides, Ocean Passages stated that this was the way to go.
At times like this one has to look at the positives and I must say that the boat had taken care of itself admirably throughout the night. Jeff manage to always return to course during the violent gyrations and the headsail held up superbly. Through the windows and hatches I could see nothing out of place and I would confirm this with a visit to the deck later in the day when things were expected to be calmer. Having said that, Knox-Johnson was right in his observation that this is a God-awful part of the ocean to be got past as soon as possible.
This morning illustrates the routine that I have adopted in these high latitudes.
The first thing I did when after getting up in the morning was to look at our course on the chart plotter to make sure that there were no surprises. I then had 3 coffees in quick succession while I sat at the nav table studying the situation on the chart plotter, ie position, boat course and speed, wind speed, and most important when running downwind, the boat's angle on the wind. (The angle on the wind let's me know what scope there may be for adjusting our course.)
Then I had my single daily squat over the grey bucket, which was resting on a non skid pad at the entrance to the quarter berth area hemmed in aft and on each side by bulkheads and the engine cover. (So what? Most of the world squats.) Then I suited up right over the clothes that I wear day in and day out. I put on the wet weather trousers, with its suspenders and high bib. Then the sea boots went on, carefully strapping the trouser hems tightly around the boots. Then on went the wet weather jacket, hood up, zipped right up to the chin, and tight around the wrists. Finally, the safety harness.
Then I got on my knees on the engine cover and slid back the hatch and removed the vertical panel. Next I put the waste bucket very carefully on a non skid pad on the engine cover, resting against the side rail. Then I got the bucket out and threw its contents overboard.
That done I proceeded to what has become my favorite part of the day: running the engine. I started off by checking the decks and water to make sure that there was no line overboard. Then I activated the control panel and moved the lever from reverse to neutral so that I could start the engine immediately after opening the exhaust valve. I opened the exhaust valve in two stages: (1) moved the lever (2) had a second independent look and told an imaginary person "Yes, I am looking at the lever and it is in the open position." (That may seem like a silly thing to do but I have had cases where I blindly flipped a ball cock lever thinking that I had opened it when in fact I had closed it because I had forgotten to close it the previous time. The important thing is the engine's welfare and I don't care what silly mind games I must play to achieve it.)
Before leaving the cockpit I had a look forward and everything seemed in order. Down below I set the timer for 1 hour because these days I enjoy the warmth of the heater so much that I am prone to conveniently forget to turn off the engine. Then I switched on the heater, draped the wet weather jacket over the end of the cabin table to capture some of the heat, put on the kettle for another cup of coffee, then kneeled in front of the heater warming up my icy hands. An hour later the timer went off, I went up and saw that it had started drizzling again, but at least the swell had dropped a but. I turned off the engine, deactivated the control panel, and shut off the all important exhaust valve. I then put the lever into reverse (so that the propeller shaft does not turn while making way) and tied the reminder cord between the lever and the control panel cover. I then returned to the cabin to enjoy the remaining heat while folding up the bedding in the starboard bunk and placing it in the forward half, away from the occasional drips at the aft end.
Then I saw that the wind had dropped below 20 knots our boat speed was down to 2.7 knots. Time to roll out more sail. After doing that I returned to the cabin for breakfast of hot buttered toast. (Yum!)
Before noon I went out and rolled out more sail. Our course was now 145T and we were making about 3 knots in a weakening wind which was now below 15 knots. I visited the mast and found that the Zodiac was still secure as were all of the fuel containers on the weather side that had taken the beating over night. Nothing else appeared to be amiss. I watched the sea birds flying around and doing their thing. They are almost constant companions now, and appear to be the same type as I've been seeing since the equator. I find it settling to watch them flying around in gales with no concern whatsoever about the weather. On the way back to the cockpit I put more lashings around the storm trysail, which is tied to the boom. Back at the cockpit I reinstated the spray dodger tarp which I should not have removed in the first place.
At noon our position was 50S35, 097W55, giving us a n-n distance of 85 miles in the direction 160T. The paper chart had me 1170 miles from the Horn. The paper chart had me 1170 miles from the Horn. The chart plotter and laptop software had me closer: 1125 and 1134 miles respectively. I had crossed the path of Matt, who was more than 6 days ahead of me and headed more to the east. The last 24 hours had been useful in improving my position further to the south, but I was now looking forward to making progress directly toward the Horn to close in on it more rapidly.
As if the divas had heard my wish, 30 minutes later I detected a subtle wind shift that had us heading directly south. I decided that a gybe would be worth a try because in the light wind it was easy enough to do. I gybed the boat, put Jeff in control of the rudder, then came down and got a very pleasant surprise from the chart plotter. We were on a course actually south of the Horn. I must have been sailing closer the wind than I had thought. I could afford to adjust Jeff to put us a little bit more off the wind, then I rolled out a bit more sail. That put us on a course almost directly to Cape Horn making 3.5 knots. That bolstered my spirits, even though I knew that it probably wouldn't last. At 3 PM the wind had weakened and the sail was fretting. It was the same old problem of a weak wind on a rolling sea. I countered by going 10 more degrees off the wind and rolling in sail. This put us on a course slightly north of the Horn with a dismal speed of 2.2 knots. If the grib file was correct I would be spending the night becalmed then putting up the trysail in the morning for some beating and reaching. Grrr! Time for cup of tea.
At 4 PM I rolled in what little sail was out and we lay ahull. We were in fog with visibility of about 2 miles. Even without sail we were drifting toward the southern end of the continent at about 0.8 knots. The grib file showed us at the center of a low of 998 hPa at midnight. I didn't know if the previous night's low had overtaken us or this was a very local phenomenon. I may as well make the best of it and have a relaxing and restful night to be ready for the next series of winds.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment