Day 21 - Tough Night

At 11 PM I got an almost immediate connection to Sailmail and the backlogs of messages going out and coming in were cleared. However, there was a price. The data transfer rate was in the order of 300 bytes/min so the session lasted a whopping 45 minutes or so. This is not sustainable and I will probably get a warning message from Sailmail.

Until the Sailmail connection and transfer issues improve - probably as I near Cape Town - I ask that only urgent or important messages be sent to me, and that they be as brief as possible. My communication priorities have been reduced to getting out the daily blog and position reports and receiving grib files.

Brenda has been hard at work getting information from TdC and she has obviously been in communication with them. She sent me very good information on various aspects of visiting the island and passed on two messages from Andy Repetto giving me information on radio contact. Then will be watching out for my call on SSB radio. Given the help and cooperation that TdC is offering I will do my best to pay them a visit. I have confidence that they will give me good advice regarding anchoring.

I also got a short message from Jeanne which gave me some information on TdC. She has been having her share of equipment problems but is managing and seems in good spirits. Her position was 34s, 115E, and she expects to round the Horn in the first week of January.

I got my first grib file in 2 days last night and it was a shocker. Instead the blow abating as I had expected, it would maintain its strength (lower end of a gale) throughout the remainder of the night and into the afternoon. That explained why I had been sailing on all day expecting an abatement that never came. At midnight the self steering lines jumped off the spool again and I decided to roll in the headsail and lie ahull for the rest of the night. Two of the fuel containers on the starboard rail were very loose so I had to harness up and retrieve them for safe storage in the cockpit. While I was working at the rail I heard it coming, grabbed the rail, and I got hit hard by a wave that started to carry me across the cabin top to the lee rail. Between my grip on the wire and my lifeline I was in no real danger, though it was a novel experience. It made me think of what one of the secrets of this boat design might be. It has such a low profile in the water that waves have only a limited target because any excess will simply pass over the boat. At dawn I woke up to a shuffling sound on deck. Another fuel container had come completely loose and was sliding up and down the side deck. I put on my soggy wet weather gear and retrieved it.

The boat must have taken some heavy hits during the night because I woke up at 7.30 AM to find quite a bit of disarray throughout. First order of business was coffee, but the gas detector gave an alarm and would not open the solenoid valve for the gas. It was then that I felt a slight burning in the eyes from a hydrocarbon. We had been taking the wind from the starboard side and all sorts of things wound up on the port side of the cabin. I had left two pots, and various dishes in a rather deep plastic container that sits in the opening to the ice box, and just about everything in there wound up at the nav station, including knives and forks. One plastic glass wound up in the shelf next to the navigation desk, which is higher than the ice box. The nav station had taken a lot of water but the plastic covering and shower curtain protected the precious computer. Through the companionway I could see the spray dodger, which suggested something seriously amiss.

The next task was to find the spare wet weather suit and boots. I managed to do that, wiped the inside of the sailing jacket with a towel, then dressed up for wet weather. I found my way into the starboard quarter berth and looked in the very large plastic storage container where I keep the liquid materials. Sure enough the bottle of paint thinner had tipped over, the cap leaked, and thinner was sloshing around the bottom of the container. I emptied out the contents then sacrificed a sponge to transfer the thinner to the sink. I then wiped everything with a paper towel as I replaced it and opened the main hatch to ventilate the boat.

I then had a look at the spray dodger from the companionway. There is a set of bolt ropes along the front lower edge of the spray dodger that slide into tracks much as sails do. This is the foundation of that taut shape that the dodger must have. The stitching between the canvas and bolt rope had failed. Fortunately all of the zippers worked OK and I managed to remove the dodger, roll it up, and stow it forward. I then pushed the metal frame to lie forward in front of the companionway. The dodger material and windows are in good condition, so I am confident that it can be repaired in Cape Town. However, I will not have the benefit of the spray dodger for the rest of this passage, opening the companionway to the full brunt of the weather when I slide the hatch open. I'll have to get used to it.

Then I tried the gas detector and the green light came on accompanied by the clack of the solenoid opening. Now I was cooking with gas, as they say, and I had two quick mugs of coffee. Things were looking up.

Not long afterwards I tried sailing but the conditions were simply too rough. I rolled in the headsail but left the autopilot on and to my surprise it managed to steer us downwind under bare poles doing around 4 kts. Then I saw that the port side fuel containers were in very bad shape. The lower of the two boards had cracked clean in two, and I had lost 2 containers overboard, one of which was empty. One was hanging over the side by ropes and another appeared to be loose on the deck. I went forward to rescue them but there was a gust of wind and I had to beat a hasty retreat. I had 60 liters of fuel safe in the cockpit, the 40 liters on the starboard side seemed safe for now, but the 60 liters still on the port side were in peril.

At noon our position was 36S31, 016W06, giving us a n-n distance of 89 miles in the direction 077T. We were 183 miles from TdC. The barometer had risen 4 points to 1006 hPa. The wind was abating, but still threatening with occasional violent surges.

An hour later I managed to rescue 3 containers representing 50 liters of fuel. I noticed later that a stanchion that had supported the port planks was bent perhaps 20 degrees out of true and it appeared that a wave must have hit that side with monumental force. Maybe it was due to luck but I had not encountered seas this rough during my trek around the Horn.

At 3 PM I went up to let out a bit more headsail and discovered that the autopilot had disengaged and the boat was happily plodding along on a beam reach. I set the course slightly off the wind and our went back to 5 kts.

After dinner I lay down for a short while and realized that I was chilly all over, and no wonder, given that I had been wearing only a T-shirt and thin sweater under the wet weather gear. I put on the regulation US Navy heavy wool sweater and then I was warm again.

Just before dark the wind picked up and the boat was doing over 5 kts in an agitated way. I also began to hear a different sound from the deck. I went to the cockpit and saw that on half of the broken board had one end in the water, which could cause serious problems during the night. First I rolled in some headsail then went onto the side deck with a knife. Both pieces of timber went overboard and I recovered the last container from the rail. I wasn't too happy about throwing the timber overboard, given that it could pose a hazard to other boats. But they were not terribly heavy pieces of timber and I just didn't relish the idea of cramming the soggy boards with their jagged ends into the over crowded hold. Down below I saw that our speed was 2.5 kts and the boat was much quieter. There was now only a tiny amount of sail out so that if we ran into a squall I would not have a crisis on my hands. The autopilot had been behaving itself and I was hoping for a reasonably quiet night with slow but steady progress.

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