Day 3

The wind picked up slightly as darkness was approaching and I had the choice of safely dawdling for the night toward the south with jib only, or raising the mainsail to try to get better speed and direction (more to the SE). The latest grib file had reported winds no stronger than 16 kt and I had concluded that those "squalls" that I had been seeing on radar were sea clutter, given that there was no hint of moisture, thunder, or confused winds. I raised the mainsail but because I confused my reefing lines I brought the sail up to the first reef rather than the safer second reef, and decided to leave it at that. After darkness fell the wind picked up and I rolled in some jib, hoping that I would not have to do any mainsail work during the night. Ahead of me was an arc of bright lights, six to the port and one to the starboard. I had been watching them for hours on radar and now I could see signs of more oil work. Soon I picked up their AIS transmission and could see that they were either not moving, or moving very slowly. It was a clear night and the moon rose up a couple of hours later. I got past the objects and the wind picked up to 16-18 kts, pushing the boat speed to 5.5-6.5 kt. Ahead of me was one small target, but it was moving across my bow. That meant that I could get some sleep.

I had a near normal night's sleep, using the timer to do a quick check every hour then going back to sleep. Toward the end of the night I realized that I didn't need a timer. After surfacing after a deep sleep and realizing where I was I would rise up ahead of the timer and do my check. At dawn I saw that the wind had dropped to 12 kt and the boat speed was down to 3.5 kt so I rolled out more jib to take us to over 5 kt, still headed SE. I check the radar and for the first time since leaving Angra there were no targets within the 24 mile range of the unit. It would take hours for us to reach a drifting fishing boat, and an approaching fast moving ship would set off the AIS alarm. On that basis I shut down the radar and went back to sleep for as long as I wanted to, and after two hours I was up feeling rested though groggy. In my hands and the fronts of my shoulders I could feel the effects of the past day's sail and winch activities. It was a warm and bright sunny day and I enjoyed taking my time having coffee and toast to the company of BBC news.

At about 10.30 AM (UTC) I dropped the mainsail, lashed the boom, rolled in some headsail, then dawdled along at 0.5 kt with a 4 kt wind. This period of weak and confused winds had been predicted by the grib file, which had been very accurate so far. I switched on the radar and found no targets anywhere, not even sea clutter. Good. I always feel safer far away from land and alone.

At noon our position was 26S24, 042W34, giving us a n-n distance of 114 miles to the SE. We were 231 miles from Bracuhy, 206 miles from the nearest land, and 1665 miles from Tristan de Cunha.

Soon the wind became untenable and I rolled in the headsail and let the boat drift. With the dry deck and tolerable rolling I had the ideal conditions for stowing the anchor and chain. I moved the 45 lbs anchor from the deck where it was lashed to the mast and placed it on top of the 50 lb Swarbrick "Fisherman" anchor in the floor of the closet. Then I fed the 38 meters of 10 mm (3/8") chain back into the milk crate at the floor of the V-berth section. This was the arrangement for the Cape Horn passage and it had worked very well. Remaining at the upper level of the chain locker is the long rode of 12 meters of 10 mm chain with 80 meters of 20 mm white rope. If I anchor at Tristan de Cunha (TdC)I will be using this long rode with the Swarbrick anchor. That Swarbrick will hold in mud, sand, gravel, the crevice or ledge of rock, and will punch its way down through weed. (However, it is susceptible to fouling, so must be laid with great care and reset every few days in an anchorage with variable winds.)

Conditions were also good for an engine run for charging the batteries, given that I would be able to run the engine under load and for useful propulsion toward our objective. The house bank was still at 12.5 volts which is a testament to the contributions made by the solar panels and wind charger since we left Bracuhy, but it is useful to keep that bank of 4 230 a/h gel batteries as charged as possible. I ran the engine for 2 hours @ 2000 rpm.

During the engine run I had lunch of a tomato, a capsicum, and a piece of cheese, all nice and chilled, followed by a few almonds. While munching away I had a look at several sweeps from the radar and there was nothing out there. (Yes!)

In the afternoon I washed two sets of underclothes and hung them out to dry on the rope life line. Then I had a leisurely cockpit bath complete with hair shampoo. It was comfortable and pleasant because there was sunlight and the air temperature was just right.

Afterwards I had a survey of the wind situation and decided to stay put. There was a feeble 7 or 8 kt breeze from the SE, exactly where I wanted to go. Such light wind would not support the mainsail (because the boom would be slaming side to side) and I would not get the speed and direction necessary to make beating with the jib worthwhile. I would relax and enjoy life on the boat - and maybe watch the first movie of the passage.

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