Day 40, April 15 - On the Move

Yesterday's (Day 39) blog went out prematurely. The noon numbers for that day were:

POS 39S51, 89E28
NND 17 nm
DMG 3438 nm
DTG 1362 nm

The numbers were a testament to lying ahull, but at least we had drifted closer to our destination.

I decided to take advantage of the calm conditions to bake two loaves of bread yesterday afternoon. The yeast was as robust as ever and the bread rose well.

A very light west wind from the west came up two hours after nightfall and I put the boat on a port tack and rolled out a bit of sail. I woke up at dawn to find the sail flapping uselessly so I rolled it in. The boat's track indicated that the drop in wind had occurred about an hour previously. We had managed to make about 12 nm to the NE overnight, but that was having drifted to the south for 3 miles.

At 0300, about 3 hours after dawn a gentle wind came up and I rolled out some headsail. The wind strengthened a bit and an hour later we were making respectable (2-3 kts) progress to the E. At 5 AM I decided to take a chance that this was the beginning of the steady buildup of the wind that had been forecast and raised the 3rd reef of the mainsail. I had not planned to consider this until just before nightfall but I needed to balance the headsail in order to be able to head more into the wind and toward the north. For some reason I am always reluctant to raise the mainsail (and reluctant to drop it too), but the wind was gentle, the sea calm, so the situation was ideal.

I tried a new technique that worked out very well. The running backstays are composed of very strong Spectron lines extending from the mast to almost the cockpit frame. At that point heavy a heavy block is attached which enables double purchase with ordinary line wound around a winch. The blocks are heavy and prevent the backstays from flying off to the side in the breeze when their lines are eased. This presents the same problem that I had with the lazy jacks: when raising the mainsail the backs of the battens get snagged on the leeward running backstay. This has been a serious problem because even pointing the boat into the wind would not prevent it. I would have to point the boat into the wind, watch the mainsail jump around, then jerk the line at the right moment. Of course I would have to do this several times before success. As luck would have it, the blocks that I had in my inventory heavy enough for the role were snap blocks. So I tied a cord to the thimble at the end of the leeward Spectron line, released the snap block, then took the line forward and tied it down at the mast. I then returned to the cockpit and snapped the block onto the cockpit safety running line and took out the slack. That worked very well. The leeward running backstay was out of the way and nice and tidy, and the entire leeward side of the mainsail hoist area was clear so that I could focus solely on the hoist.

The triple reefed mainsail set easily because the reefing lines fore and aft were already in place from the last time the sail had been up. ... Speaking of which ... this was the first time I had the mainsail up since 26 March, just short of 3 weeks earlier, when I had made my turn to the east after the escape from Frosty and Smoothie, the icebergs that I really didn't want to get to know very well.

I decided to change my definition of "noon" for measuring progress over 24 hours. Up to now I have used 1200 UTC but that time is now after sunset local time and it does not mesh well with my transmissions of the blog. As of today "noon" will be advanced 4 hours to 0800 UTC, or 4 PM Perth time. That means that the NND for today, given below, will actually cover a period of 20 hours, which doesn't matter much given that most of that time we were drifting ahull.

The noon (0800 UTC) numbers were:

POS 39S39, 90E06
NND 32 nm (over a 20 hour span)
DMG 3473 nm
DTG 1330 nm

After the noon report I went topside and shook out the 3rd reef. It went like a dream with literally no sweat for once. Most of the work had already been done to get the 3rd reef up. I made sure that the forward 2nd reef line was in place, and it was holding the cringle at the correct position, which it was. The wind was so light that I made the hoist on the run without going into the wind and using the winch. If the forecast was correct I was now set up for the next 24 into the following evening. After that the wind would back more to SSW and I would have to run downwind using the headsail only, but that would be OK because I expected the wind to be stronger then.

The sun, though weak, had made its best appearance in weeks and between the solar panels and the wind charger I got a net inflow of power into the batteries during the day. That was very good because I had neither run the engine nor removed the oil pressure sensor for inspection pending more advice.

It was great to be on the move again - sort of like having the warder remove the ball and chain from my ankle.

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