Day 11, March 17 - On the Move

The wind last night held up longer than I had expected. After an early meal of spaghetti I watched a movie (Terms of Endearment). I have a pretty good movie setup. I watch movies on the navigation computer where I can conveniently glance up to the chart plotter to check the boat and wind data, and I can swing my head to the left to check amperages and voltages, which is very useful when I am running the engine. Thirty minutes after the movie the wind had died down enough to warrant the engine run in order to charge the battery bank which was down to 12.4V. The wind was down to about 9 kts and falling and the headsail was beginning to fret even though we were still making 3.5 kts with Jeff doing the steering. I rolled in the sail, disengaged Jeff, the started the engine for a 2-hour run. The autopilot was doing the steering and now we were able to head more into the wind on a course of ESE. I then started to watch a second movie (U571). Twenty minutes into the movie I glanced up and saw that the boat was starting to do a "Crazy Ivan" and making a 360 degree circle to port, meaning that the autopilot had disengaged. I went topside, completed the circle, then reengaged the autopilot, which gave me no trouble after that. After the engine run I took to the bunk at 10.30 PM for a carefree sleep snuggled up nice and warm under 2 blankets. I didn't expect wind until after dawn and the boat was drifting comfortably.

I woke up at 4 AM and there was still no wind and I woke up again at 5.30 AM to find the beginnings of a usable wind. I noted that the battery bank was at a healthy 12.8V. I decided to hold back setting sail until after the 6.30 AM SAMMNet session. The session went well and the weather prediction was for up to 35 kt winds at noon and 6 PM, dropping to 30 kt at midnight and 6 AM tomorrow. Sam gave me a Heads Up that I could expect 40 kt wind on Wednesday and I'd better batten down the hatches. If this came to pass I might be able to try out heaving to with my new 3rd reef and new weather sheets at the sides of the cockpit.

I set the headsail and soon realized that I would have to raise the mainsail if I wanted to get the most out of the coming winds. I decided to be conservative and raise the mainsail double reefed. The first slab of reef was still bound to the boom by shock cord (and would likely remain so because I don't expect to raise the full sail during the passage). I used Jeff to point close the wind then raised the sail to its second reef and found that I did not have to use a winch to bring on the aft reefing line because I had earlier put the boom nice and high with the topping left. Then it was time to break new ground: transferring the 1st reefing line at the back of the sail to the 3rd reefing cringle.

I brought the boom in over the cockpit the untied the 1st reefing line from around the boom and pulled it out of the 1st reef cringle. I then tied the tail of the cord looped between the 2nd reef cringle (which was now at the boom) and the 3rd reef cringle (which was another meter up) to the end of the reefing line and pulled on the loop to take the line up through the 3rd reef cringle then back down to the boom and my hands, which worked fine. I tied the reefing line around the boom then I went forward with shock cord and tied the second slab of reef around the boom. Now the boat was ready for a 3rd reef from the safety of the cockpit so I took the boat off the wind let boom out to trip the mainsail and we were on our way. At 9 AM we were making 5 kts to ESE off a 12 kt wind that was expected to build up.

Two hours later the wind had picked up to 15 kts and was rising, so I decided to put up the staysail. I hoisted the staysail inside of the headsail, known as a "peel". With the staysail partially blanketing the headsail the task of rolling it in was easier. I wound up with the staysail up and the headsail covering the area between the forestays. My effort gained more than a half knot in boat speed so I was pleased with the result. When the wind got stronger I would roll in the headsail and rely on the staysail.

In anticipation of rough weather in the coming night I chopped up the various vegetables and prepared the bean stew for cooking in the evening. Just before lighting the stove I would put in the final ingredient, some nice boneless and skinless fillets of chicken that I had kept chilled in the refrigerator.

I tried contacting Jeanne at 10.30 AM with no success, though I could just make out her voice an recognized the word "Over!"

At the 11.30 AM SAMMNet session Graham redirected his beam from the Atlantic to me in the Southern ocean, hailed me, and I responded in my usual booming voice that I've learned to use in HF communication. He came back a bit shaken saying that he was receiving me very well and I had knocked him back in the chair, or something to that effect. I told Graham that I was a happy sailor, making 7 kts to 110T. His forecast gave me improved forecasts on what I had heard in the first session. Today and tomorrow I could expect winds up to 25 kts, not the 35 kts reported earlier. He said that it would be likely that I would far enough east to escape the worst of the blow on Wednesday, 30 kts instead of 40 kts.

At noon our position was 43S06, 29E08, giving us a respectable n-n distance of 75 miles to the east.

I woke up from a nap at 3 PM to find the boat rocketing along, averaging 7.8 or 7.9 knots. My instinctive reaction was to slow the boat down, but when I had a look at the situation I could find no objective reason for shortening sail. We were beam to the wind and although the sea had built up the boat was keeping her bow out of the water. The wind load was being shared the modest amounts of headsail, trysail, and mainsail. The heel of the boat was not excessive and the Monitor was coping well. If the wind instrument was correct the wind speed was about 20 knots. I decided to have a cup of tea instead. But soon we were sustaining speeds of 8.3 and 8.4 knot, our heel increased, and occasionally the headsail would luff, shaking the boat. I suited up and went topside to find that Jeff wasn't coping with the weather helm and in fact the boat was slightly into the wind and starting to bash into the oncoming waves The first thing I did was to reduce the sail area by rolling in the jib, leaving only the staysail and double reefed mainsail. Then I took over the helm and took the boat off the wind from E to SE. This reduced the apparent wind and now we were going more with the waves than against them. I set Jeff up in the new situation and watched for a few minutes to make sure that he would hold our course. That being done I went down below to finish my cup of tea in a much quieter boat. We had much less heel and were averaging about 7 kts to the SE. I don't like running even a little downwind with the mainsail up because I am afraid of an accidental gybe, but I figured that if something went wrong with Jeff's steering the boat would simply round up into the wind. I remembered that I had run like this with the mainsail on the way from Brazil until the apparent wind reached 35 kts and I was forced to round the boat up and heave her to, so we should be OK in this 25 kt wind.

At 4 PM all was well and I did not expect the wind to get any stronger throughout the night.

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