I was up at 6 AM and over two cups of coffee I came to the conclusion that it was time to drop the trysail that had carried us so well through the rough weather in order to run more downwind with the headsail. I decided to put up the whisker pole to improve the downwind angle even more and calculated that it was best to stay on the current starboard tack. That led to a strenuous and sweaty two hours of running back and forth between the cockpit and the foredeck. I started off by lubricating the piston on the whisker pole with WD40, then connecting the lanyard for pulling back the piston when it was time to drop the pole off the sheet. Then I set up the pole on the ring and left the other end sitting on the rail while I went back and rolled in the headsail. Back on the foredeck I connected the sheet to the pole and returned to the cockpit to roll out the headsail. The really difficult part turned out to be the dropping of the trysail. I freed the halyard but the sail would not come down, no doubt because of the pressure on it from downwind running. I went back to the cockpit, sheeted in the trysail hard, then set Jeff to run us dead downwind. Still the trysail would not come down. Duh! I had released the topping lift and not the trysail halyard. I brought the boom back up with the topping lift then dropped the trysail with little trouble. However, tying it along the mainsail and boom was not easy. The problem was that I was working on the leeward side of a heavily rolling boat. Thus I had to face the center of the boat but the rolls were trying to force me backward over the side. It was a cycle of doing a little bit more, stiffening up like a board and hanging on during the next roll, the doing a little more work.
Back in the cabin I was disappointed with the result. Either I had miscalculated or the wind had shifted. A gybing with the whisker pole was in order. I was tired and sweaty but it was important to get the boat set up for the day so I immediately went back on deck. I had never gybed the whisker pole but then again there are many things that I had not done before this cruise. There were more lessons learned. The lanyard would not retract the piston for dropping the pole and I discovered that it is important that the loop connected to the piston be on the correct side of the sheet. I swapped the pole, connected it to the sheet, then went back to the cockpit to find that Jeff did not have enough way for steering the boat so from then on I had to helm as I went. Because we were so off the wind there was agitation at the sail and the pole dropped off the sheet. The lanyard that I had set up to fire the piston had wrapped around a deck cleat, become taut, and done its job. Another lesson learned. I set up the pole again, returned to the cockpit, and began to roll out the headsail only to find that I had made another very imaginative mistake: I had put the pole on the wrong sheet. So I wound the headsail back in then went forward and sorted it out.
The results justified all of the effort. That whisker pole is GREAT. I can run dead downwind with it in a moderate breeze and in the run to Staten Island it will save me many hours of sailing if the wind behaves as predicted. Who knows, those hours saved might save me from another battering by a gale. I can't thank Bob Carrol enough for encouraging me to get a whisker pole.
The day was turning out to be a pleasant one. After a few early rain showers the day became partly cloudy and sunny. The sea was a little lumpy but remarkably calm considering our position. We were ambling toward Staten Island at a gentle 3.5 knots running before a 13 knot breeze.
I decided to dispense with boat time altogether and set the ship's clock to UTC/GMT time. I had been using La Paz time which was becoming more inappropriate as I moved east, and I saw no point in making clock adjustments as I crossed time zones. My "noon" reports have been based on La Paz time and correspond to 1800 UTC/GMT. I will continue issuing my noon reports at that time.
At noon our position was 55S59, 065W16, giving us a n-n distance of 88 miles in the direction 084T. We were making about 4 knots in the direction of the NE tend of Staten Island 95 miles ahead.
I decided to take advantage of the clear weather and relatively calm sea to do a fuel transfer. It's messy business without a proper fuel pump but I got it done. However, it took only 17 liters and my records show that I've put 35 hours of running time on the engine since the last top up. Either I did an intermediate transfer that I didn't record or the crossover pipe that joins the two tanks cannot keep up with the rate at which I filled the starboard tank. I would find that surprising because I ladle the fuel in from a bucket at about a liter at a time. The only way to find out is to do another fuel transfer soon. I have to be sure that I am at a known state, and without a fuel gauge or any way to plumb the tanks, full tanks are the only certainty.
The forecast was for a period of light winds from the north so I decided to put away the trysail and use the mainsail. Looking up I saw that several of the cords that prevent halyards from wrapping behind the mast steps had broken, so I had to go up the mast above the radar and patch things up. It's just as well that I went up because I found two broken wires on the port D1 shroud, the lower stay that goes to the bottom of the first crosstree. I was discouraged. The entire rigging was new when I sailed out of Fremantle 3.5 years ago. In Hawaii both forestays and both D1's were replaced. In Port Townsend the headstay was replaced yet again because of a serious mistake that the rigger in Hawaii had made that made me very lucky to make it to Pt Townsend without losing the mast. (He made a modification to the furler and put one screw in too far so that when I worked the furler the screw scored the wire. When this was discovered in Pt Townsend there was a neat score 2 or 3 mm deep completely around the wire.) Fortunately the only spare stay remaining on the boat is one of the D1's replaced in Hawaii. I'll need a day or two to make dig out that spare D1 and make sure that everything is in order with it, then will swap out the damaged wire when I get a very calm day. In the meantime, I'll have to stick with the trysail.
I have a long way to go to Cape Town and now I'll be babying the rigging as well as the headsails all of the way. This will cost me a lot of time but the important thing is to make it to Cape Town in reasonable shape. I do have one big thing going for me: the mast is big, heavy, and strong. The list for Cape Town keeps growing, and completely re rigging the boat is now on the list. Cape Town is about 4000 sea miles away, in contrast to the 6000 sea miles between La Paz and the Horn. However, the run is much more straight forward that was the La Paz - Horn segment. Averaging 3.3 knots for only 80 miles a day would require about 50 days.
I needed to resolve the fuel issue so I went through another refueling run. I managed to put in another 30 liters using the port tank filler. The tanks were really full this time because fuel was coming out of the breather. That's a hefty 47 liters of fuel in one day. The fuel situation with the Horn behind us is good. Both tanks are full, representing 140 liters of diesel. On deck are another 30 liters. The plan of carrying fuel on deck was a success and I don't know what I would have done without that extra fuel.
It was getting late when I finished the refueling (which included a lot of cleanup) and I noticed that we were now heading E rather than NW. That meant that the expected wind shift had happened. While the engine provided way for Jeff to continue steering I rolled in the headsail then dropped the whisker pole. I then hoisted the trysail again and rotated Jeff's air vane to put us beam to the wind. I rolled out a bit of headsail and set the sheets of the trysail and when it was time to shut the engine we were already sailing to the new wind.
It had been a busy day with no naps and no lunch, but I felt that I had taken good advantage of the gentle conditions, particularly to top up the diesel tanks and assess our fuel position. The wind had been very gentle all day and as the semidarkness approached we wer making maybe 2.5 knots against a wind of less than 10 knots. The sea was amazingly calm, with just a low, slow, and gentle swell.
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1 comment:
Approximately 50 days from The Horn to Cape Town...then a few to Freo. I might miss you at the end of March in Perth!!!
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