Day 99 - Better Progress and Shorter Distance

I got several items of good news last night.

The new grib file replaced its earlier prediction of 30+ knot winds in 12 hours with more manageable ones.

Then in the batch of Sailmail I received extremely useful information on a possible alternative destination to Buenos Aires.

There was a message from Brenda in which she passed on a comment to the blog from James Blackburn, in which he suggested the repair facilities at Mar del Plata, 220 miles south of Buenos Aires. I had never heard of Mar del Plata but told myself that I would look into it.

The next message was from Dieter, who also suggested Mar del Plata as an alternative, giving its location, some description of it, and stating that the harbor is easy to enter and it has "Very nice and helpful people." Dieter had been there twice, first for final preparations for his solo run for the Horn and then on his return from the Horn.

I zoomed in on Mar de Plata on my C-Map chart and it was as described: a small but wonderfully positioned and easy to enter harbor. That was all the convincing that I needed. All of a sudden the my distance to be traveled had shrunk by over 200 miles to less than 700 miles. That 200 miles would save me days of sailing. (Thank you, James and Dieter.)

Then I remembered a question from Mark about the motoring range I had with my fuel supplies. It was a timely reminder. I have the unfortunate tendency to look at the engine as an auxiliary to be used only for short range work such as maneuvering around anchorages and marinas. I suppose that I would have eventually come around to thinking about using the engine on a larger scale, but it was good to be able to incorporate it in my planning now.

I made some range calculations under the following assumptions:

- Another 20 days of travel to get within motoring range, meaning 20 more engine hours for battery charging
- Fuel consumption when charging the batteries at 1100 rpm of 2.5 L/Hr (2.3 L/Hr in the past)
- Cruising rpm of 2200 using 5.0 L/Hr

Given my current stock of fuel and allowing for 18 liters of reserve I figure that I'll be able to cruise for 40 hours. The speed made good will be a more difficult assumption: Will I be fighting wind and current? Will the sails be able to help me?

The assumption of 5 knots SOG gives me a range of 200 miles and 4 knots SOG yields 160 miles.

Given that, my goal is to sail within 150 miles of Mar de Plata and avail myself of the motoring option from there.

So now my sailing distance is less that 550 miles, but let's face it: it would be largely a windward passage and I would have to cover a lot more distance than that, hence my estimate of 20 days to reach the motoring zone.

The wind was very good overnight, in the 15-22 knot range. For a while we were tracking NNW but later the track became slightly to the east of north. Nevertheless we had managed to maintain a boat speed of 3-4 knots and I expected the day's n-n number to be good (by recent standards). There would be a period of calm beginning at about midnight and the following morning the seas might be settled enough to allow me to climb the mast and free that mainsail halyard. I very much needed to put up that mainsail. The trysail had been great for heavy downwind work but I now needed the mainsail for beating to weather and heaving to properly. Jim had recently passed on advice from Jon Sanders to heave to only with a deeply reefed mainsail. Jon has credentials: he owns an S&S 39 and is the legendary round the world solo sailor.

The ST60 masthead unit has again stopped sending wind speed data. I'll have it checked out expecting to replace it. Even though the unit is fairly new (New Zealand, late 2008) I don't begrudge the failure because those units must have an extremely hard life up at the top of the mast, totally exposed to the weather and the gyrations of the mast, with cups whizzing around at very high speeds during gales and storms. The unit survived a gale off the Oregon coast strong enough and sustained enough to bend the braced metal support of the VHF antenna, leaving it cocked at a 45 degree angle (but the radio kept working).

I'm amazed at how easily I am able to live on 2 liters of fresh water a day. Last night I didn't have to cook because I ate the second half of a rice and sardine dinner that I had prepared the night before and this morning I had a surplus of almost a liter of water. I know that I can ease up now with the prospects of land soon, but after more than 3 months of tight water restrictions it seems to be a case of old habits dying hard (or possibly chronic insecurity dying hard).

At noon our position was 46S01, 47W57, representing a n-n distance of 67 miles toward 009T. We were not heading toward Mar de Plata, which was on bearing 315T, so we were not closing in very quickly. However, we had moved more than 1 degree of latitude to the north. I wanted to get above latitude 40S with the expectation of calmer conditions and more NE winds. This incessant pounding into rough seas and winds up the the high 20's was hard on the boat, hard on the crew, and knocked probably 15 degrees off our pointing ability.

The wind speed had been picking up all morning and I had steadily been reducing the headsail. As I finished the noon report we got hit big time with 30+ knot winds - could have been 40 knots for all I know. The wind was screaming, the waves were starting to break as though we were at the beach, and I became concerned that if it kept up we might get rolled beyond the gunwale, which the sea was starting to reach already. I rolled in the rest of the headsail, lashed the wheel hard to weather, and did note that the boat was still making enough way to point us a precious 10 or 15 degrees off the beam. To the north it was relatively clear. To the south the horizon was filled with heavy dense cloud. It was too big to be a squall so I figured that it must be a front passing through. This would explain the dramatic backing of the wind predicted by the grib file. Mercifully, after 30 or 40 minutes it was over and the wind reverted to a respectable roar. I went to the cockpit and saw that the weather system had moved to the east. The wind had now backed to 240T. I noted that many of the sea birds had also hove to (well, lay ahull actually), and a few were up and flying again.

This event had demonstrated the weakness of grib file predictions which are only spot forecasts and are not able to articulate subtleties such as a strong front that might knock you down. I greatly missed the weather faxes. I had not been able to get any from Chile, Rio, or Australia for weeks.

Anyway, this was the wind change that I had been eagerly anticipating. I rolled out headsail and soon had us moving at 3 knots on the wonderful course of 295T. The boat was once again climbing over the swells, but as things settled down I would begin rolling out as much headsail as I dare to make the most of this most fair of winds.

I managed to complete two more Spanish lessons during the day. It's quite a challenge to study a language while the boat is pitching and rolling heavily and you're worried that the mast will falling over.

As night approach we were doing 3.3 knots on course 300T. I was hoping that we would be able to hold this course all night.

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