Day 2 - Sailmail Trouble and Cold Front

I have spent several frustrating hours today trying to get a useful connection with Sailmail with no success. It started last night after I had made what I think was a successful transmission of my first blog item on this passage, where I described my departure. During that session I also downloaded several messages from well wishers. (Thank you folks.) An hour after that transmission I tried to connect again to download a grib file that I had requested in the first session and I got what appeared to be a good connection to the station (RC01), but nothing happened. I decided to leave it for the following day. Today I got the same behavior. I let one successful connection play to the end and after about 5 minute I was disconnected with the message "no activity", even though there appeared to be a lot of successful packet transmissions between my laptop and the Sailmail station.

This afternoon I swapped in the backup laptop with its own copy of the Sailmail software - the Toshiba that had seen me around the Horn and had the keyboard replaced in the USA. I got the same result, so that eliminated either my laptop or my Sailmail software as the source of the problem. Today I had two very clear voice sessions with SAMMNet so I am sure that the HF radio is OK. The Pactor modem is a black box that is securely housed and has never given a hint of trouble, so I doubt that the problem lay there. The Sailmail software on my laptop is successfully setting the HF radio to the correct frequency an the Pactor modem seems to be communicating well with the Sailmail station.

At this point the most likely cause of the problem is the Sailmail African station, and I can only wait and hope that the problem "disappears" in a day or two. If the problem does not disappear I will ask Sam on SAMMNet to notify Stephen in Australia so that he can make an entry in the blog. I will also ask SAMMNet to contact Sailmal. My big concern at the moment is that relatives and friends will worry about me.

On the sailing side I had a very pleasant day. I detected only one ship the whole day (YES!) and no boats or mysterious platforms. This means that I can focus on sailing the boat without worrying about dodging threats. Sam gave me an amendment to the forecast during my afternoon session with him and I can now expect the wind shift form NW to SW to happen by 6AM UTC tomorrow. He told me that the tail end of the cold front would pass over me at 1800 (i.e. now!). The forecast was for the wind reaching 25-35 tonight so at 4 PM I rolled in most of the headsail and hoisted the staysail. Just before dark I saw an nasty bank of cloud behind me so I rolled in the jib completely and would rely on the staysail to get me through the night. The problem with the staysail is that it is an all-or-nothing proposition because it is hanked on the old fashioned way and cannot be rolled in. However, Steve had pointed out that the staysail moves the centre of force aft, which is as very good thing for both the stability of the boat an Jeff the Monitor wind steering. One great thing about a hanked sail is that it will drop very quickly when required, so if needs be I would drop the staysail, lash it, and lay ahull. That is when I would put up the stern canvas that Steve had made for me to try to force the bow of the boat into the wind.

Running with the staysail slowed the boat a half a knot to 4 kts but the peace of mind was worth the price. We were running slightly downwind and down below the boat was amazingly quite - until we got hit hard by one of those small scale "rogue" waves that crashed onto the boat with a crack like a sledge hammer and sent some water cascading into the navigation station side of the boat. Fortunately I had been ready, with the companionway buttoned up, the nav station curtain drawn, the laptop restrained by shock cord with a double layer of plastic completely covering it. I wondered how the water had gotten past the spray dodger so I went up to see if it had been damaged, but it was intact, so the wave must have hit us from slightly aft. This was re enforcement of my policy of minimizing my time on deck during rough weather.

At the time of this writing, 1840 UTC, the wind was down to about 20 kts and our boat speed was 3.8 knots. Perhaps the weather forecast had overstated things, but I much prefer an overstatement than an understatement and I am most happy to see my preparations for heavy weather wasted. I went to bed at 9 PM with the clock set to midnight because I wanted to see how the expected wind shift would affect our course. At midnight I saw that the wind had picked up to near gale Force 7 as predicted. The wind speed was 30-35 kts and the sea was rough but the boat under the staysail alone was managing very well, with little heel and an amazingly balanced helm. Our boat speed was an ideal 5.5-6.0 kts, so we were certainly not being overpowered by the sail.

I returned to the bunk with the alarm set to 3 AM but woke up at 2 AM to find that the wind had just shifted from NW to SW as predicted. I had expected to have to make an adjustment to the Monitor but we were in fact on an ideal course of SE. We had moved far enough south along the western side of the Agulhas Bank that a SE course would take us past the southern tip of the bank. The boat was riding amazingly smoothly probably because we were now presenting our stern to the sea. I returned to the bunk feeling satisfied with the situation and with the intention of sleeping freely without an alarm, but within seconds I heard the staysail thrashing heavily, which meant that something had gone wrong with the steering.

I found the airvane in the cockpit floor. It is constructed with a honeycomb of plastic to give it rigidity and the material had collapsed where it is sandwiched between two pieces of flat metal, making it loose. It had become airborne and by sheer luck had landed in the cockpit. I corrected our heading, engaged the autopilot, then dug out one of the two spare airvanes. The damaged airvane is a wide one for light airs - even though I have used it through many gales. In Hawaii I had cut off 75mm or so from the top so that it would fit under the davits frame. The two spares are longer and thinner ones for heavy air and fortunately I had cut one of them down to size in Hawaii. In the dark using a head torch I fitted the replacement airvane and soon we were back under the control of the Monitor, heading SE at 5.3 kts. Later I will restore the damaged airvane by cutting off 50mm from the lower end to remove the collapsed section then cut new channels to take the mounting bolts. I certainly cannot complain about the failure, given that the airvane has served me well for 4.5 years and 3/4 around the world.

I returned to bed at 3 AM and slept warm and cozy until 6 AM, just in time to prepare for the 6.35 AM SAMMNet session. After reporting my conditions I mentioned my problems with Sailmail and Graham who had been listening in told me that he would make inquiries and give me the result at the 11.35 session.

After the session I had another look at my position (36S45, 018E31) and saw that I had now rounded the 3 great capes of the world: Leeuwin, The Horn, and Cape of Good Hope. In Fremantle I'll get a tattoo of the world on my back showing the 3 capes. (Just kidding)

We had made good progress during the night, averaging about 5 knots, and at 7 AM we were making 5.5 kts to the SE under the staysail. The prospects were for a continuation of the SW winds at 15-25 kts for the next 17 hours until midnight, which should see me past the southern tip of the Agulhas bank at 37S, 20.5E. The forecast for noon on Sunday was for wind E 10-20 kts north of 39S and NW 5-15 south of 40S, which renewed my determination to reach latitude 40S ASAP.

At mid morning I suited up and went topside for an inspection. From the mast I could see that the staysail and rigging had gotten through the night OK. Back at the cockpit the boat seemed to be moving too gently and comfortably, even though we were making 5.5 kts. I rolled out a small area of headsail and we immediately gained 2 kts in speed with little increase in discomfort. Our SOG was now averaging 7.5 kts. I had read that headsails and staysails do not play nice with each other, but in this case, with the wind off the beam and only enough jib to fill the gap between the two forestays the result was very good. The wheel was showing only a moderate amount of lee helm.

Graham had some information for me during the afternoon SAMMNet session. He said that the S African Sailmail station is indeed experiencing some problems but there is an alternative one and he will be able to give me details on that one tomorrow. I told him that my biggest concern was that relatives and friends would worry about me needlessly. He asked if there was a message that he could send on my behalf and I dictated a short one to Brenda explaining the technical problem and that Pachuca and myself are doing fine. Hopefully she will pass this on to Stephen who will put a notice on the blog.

At noon UTC our position was 37S10, 19E12, giving us a n-n distance of 117 miles to the S. I was making much better progress than I had anticipated. Sailing south from Cape Town can be a difficult passage because the prevailing winds are from the S and SE, but by sheer luck I departed as a cold front was approaching and was able to ride its winds. This is precisely what Steve had advised me but at the time I didn't think it likely that I would wait around for one of those fronts.

The Rutland 913 wind charger is in its element and is making a great contribution to the boat's power supply. One flaw with Rutlands is that in winds of over 30 kts they overheat and the thermostat stops the charging process. However in the 20-25 kt range the charger supplies a steady 4-5 amps which is invaluable.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com