The evening's grib file predicted winds in the direction that I wanted to go (105-110T) so either tack would give me the same angle from the target.
The 2.30 AM weather fax showed another low passing to the south of us with a cold front headed our way.
I woke up at 8 AM with the wind up to 24 knots and the headsail still out more than half way. I quickly dressed and went out to find a scene of white caps, a big swell form the south, and sunshine, meaning that the cold front had passed over us during the night. I managed to reel in most of the headsail without traumatizing it. Down below I looked at the situation over a cup of coffee and decided to gybe the boat.
Gybing the boat in high winds, i.e. crossing the wind with it coming from behind, can be destructive if done with the wrong kind of sails set the wrong way. The worst problem is with mainsails with their big areas - unless deeply reefed - and the boom. With Pachuca in this sail configuration the first thing I do is to completely wind in the headsail. I leave the trysail up with a sheet attached to each aft corner of the boat. Then I disconnect Jeff from the wheel and manually turn it hard so that slowly - very slowly at first - the boat responds and begins to cross the wind. As soon as that happens the trysail fills from the other side with a soft "snap" and the boat is on the other tack. Then it becomes a little interesting. There is no point in taking the time to re engage Jeff because the sail balance is all wrong - no headsail and backwinded mainsail. I simply let the wheel go free and attend to the sails, knowing that the boat will turn beam on to the sea - not particularly comfortable in a high wind but at least stable. The first thing I do is to ease the weather sheet of the trysail and then bring on the lee sheet by hand and cleat it off so that the sail is held in her new position firmly with both sheets. The boat now has some drive. Then I roll out 50 sq ft of headsail giving the boat some sail balance. I then go back to the wheel, take the boat off the beam reach and into a downwind run, then engage Jeff. After the gybe this morning I realized that I wanted to bring on the trysail lee sheet more to give the sail a better shape, but both port cockpit winches were loaded: the aft one with the all important roller furler line and the forward one with the jib sheet. I decided to try using the port cabin winch and that went very well. While the winch had the load on the line I managed to push the line into a jam cleat on the side of the coaming and that took all of the strain while I unloaded the winch and cleated the line. The keys to it all are the very tolerant trysail (have I mentioned how much I like it?) and the fact that the boat settles beam on to the wind while I attend to the sails.
That put us back on a course roughly parallel with the coast line, at course maybe 145T. It was far from an ideal direction but at least I wasn't closing in on the continent too fast. In prolonged winds like this I would have to zig zag my way down with gybes, greatly reducing my Distances Made Good and prolonging my sailing time to the Horn. But I reminded myself once again that we had the important things going for us: a fair wind, a (huge) following sea, and the current. It was all just a matter of time and all I had to do was to take care of the boat and savor the experience while it lasted because believe me, I didn't plan to do it again. (You do believe me, don't you?)
In case I haven't explicitly mentioned it, while the trysail is up the mainsail is firmly tied to the boom which is amidships, held firmly by a line on each side. The back of the boom has been slightly raised by the topping lift to prevent any chafing between the mainsail and the spray dodger. This has worked well, with a trysail sheets comfortably clearing the boom and topping left on both tacks. And it keeps the boom totally out of my way so that I have clear passage to either side of the deck. (I say that because on some boats the boom down and lashed to one of the side rails which seems to me would block access to the side deck and maybe a winch or two.)
At noon our position was 54S29, 081W27, giving us a n-n distance of 86 miles in the direction 105T, a surprisingly good result in both distance and direction. According to the chart we were only 510 miles from the Horn and 300 miles from the coast.
The day had started well, with sun and blue skies. I figured that we'd be in for at least 12 hours of good weather, but in the afternoon the sky became overcast and the wind piped up big time. We spent the afternoon running before a near gale. I must admit that the grib file had predicted 28 knot winds but the import just didn't sink into my head. Reality hit me literally in the face when I was topside gybing the boat. The boat went broadside to the wind and while I was busy cranking a winch I got hit big time by buckets of flying water. Fortunately I'm wearing good foul weather gear and there was no damage other than a bit of cold water trickling down my neck. But the warning had been served and I didn't roll out much headsail after the gybe. Later the wind strengthened to the point where Jeff could not cope and we wound up hurling through the water on a beam reach. I managed to reduce the headsail to just a few square feet and set Jeff back up.
In those boisterous conditions I had a go at getting the autopilot working again with no success. I went in heavy, with the sandpaper, terminal cleaner, and a determination to get it right the first time. But when I reconnected the pair of wires that I was sure were for signal the problem remained. So I worked on the heavier pair of wires, which I'm pretty sure are for power to the linear drive. I wasn't happy with the terminal block so I replaced it with a new one. Still there was no improvement. Then I did everything again, this time cutting back most of the wires to produce fresh wiring and carefully reconnecting them. Before reconnecting the lighter wires I joined them with my fingers to see if the chart plotter would begin to see the heading information, but there was no improvement. The autopilot display was still reporting "seatalk failure". After probably 3 hours of work in that area I closed it back up convinced that the problem did not lay in those connections after all. I then went to the communications closet and jiggled the connections as before but still there was no improvement. The only step from my initial success that I did not retrace was to remove the instrument panel above the companionway and jiggle the connections. The conditions were much too rough for that and in any case my recollection was that the heavy rubber connection plugs behind the depth and wind instruments were rock solid.
That left the chart plotter with no heading information and no wind information. I decided to give it a rest for a few days while I thought about the problem and waited for better conditions. When I resume work on the problem I'll probably trace the Seatalk cable of the daisy chained wind and depth instruments. I'm fairly sure that they wind up at the back of the autopilot black box computer. One serious handicap in the effort is the fact that I cannot get full access to the autopilot computer because in New Zealand I got a great price on a Mastervolt 60 amp hardwired battery charger that I mounted in the communications closet, and to get complete access to black box I must first remove the Mastervolt. I can do it, but certainly not in the current sea conditions. So at present I can see the black box at an angle and can see the labels on the many connectors. (I got the year old Mastervolt for $250 because the owner was so impressed with it that he had ordered 2 larger ones for his luxury power boat.)
While writing the above paragraph I had a busy 40 minute interruption. I'd been running the engine for 45 minutes and either because of that or probably the strong wind Jeff lost control and the boat had gybed. Had there been much headsail showing it could have torn it to shreds. I put on my waterproof jacket and went outside to find some pretty wild conditions. The wind speed was only 28 knots but there is something about this area that seems to magnify sea conditions all out of proportion. I suspect that the problem was that the 28 knot wind was building on top of an already huge swell. I'd had enough. I rolled in the headsail, left the boat on the new tack, and helmed it for another 20 minutes to make sure that the batteries were well charge for the night. It was exciting to say the least, with huge swells coming from the starboard quarter and the boat managing to rise just in time then drop on the back side of the waves. I was all eyes and hands trying to hold the heading when from the corner of my eye I saw a dolphin of all things. I hadn't seen a dolphin since the Sea of Cortez and here was one crossing the bow of the boat at this unbelievable time. When the engine time was up I waited to what I though might be a lull in the waves, shut the engine down and quickly shut off the exhaust valve, then threw the wheel hard to bring the boat into the wind to heave to. With no headsail or staysail in front of the mast and just the trysail exerting its force behind the mast the boat still insisted on laying squarely beam on to the sea. I lashed the wheel to weather hoping that that would produce some angle into the wind but it had no effect. Beam to the seas it might be, but down below in the cabin it was amazingly quiet, with a wave slapping the hull occasionally. Once, during a gale off the Oregon coast, I was able to get this boat to heave to properly, using the mainsail with its second reef, the staysail backwinded, and the wheel lashed to weather. Brenda agreed that the boat was noticeably quieter. However, in my opinion the large mainsail with only 2 reefs presents much too much sail area for stormy conditions. And besides, staysail is not an option for me these days.
As I've said, I'd had enough of the rough sailing and worrying about the headsail and decided to heave to for the night and relax. Hours of doing electrical work in the bowels of the boat in these conditions had taken it out of me. Battle fatigue. A good meal, a good movie (even a bad one), and a drink out of the 3rd and last bottle of booze on the boat (Appleton Jamaica Rum) followed by a good night's sleep should do the trick. (I lament not having brought more liquor for this trip. Yes, it is unwise to drink while solo sailing, but I forgot about times of heaving to, when the boat is tranquil and needs to attention and it's time to zonk out.)
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
1 comment:
100 less than day 77...a miracle. Great fun seeing a dolphin!
Post a Comment