Day 48, April 23 - Whisker Pole from a Bearded Man

Five hours into the night I woke up to find the boat heading NE. As predicted, the wind had backed toward the SSE and moderated. The gybe put the boat on a course just S of E, which was OK because I didn't want to go any farther north for a while. However, the prediction was for light winds in the 10-12 kt range for the next 18 hours, followed by even lighter winds in the 8-9 kt range and then a full day of insufficient wind. I would be able to keep the boat moving for a while, but we would be creeping past the 500 mile mark rather than charging through it. I could always hope for a change in the forecast.

Thirty minutes later the headsail was in trouble and so was I. The wind was so feeble that the sail was flogging left and right because unfortunately we were beam on to the swell. I reduced sail then dropped marker in the laptop navigation program in order to be able to determine our course and speed later. I tried sleeping but there was too much agitation in the sail so I got up, put on my sailing gloves, and proceeded topside in order to roll in the sail and lie the boat ahull. It was an major disappointment because I had not expected this for another 24 hours. Fortunately when I stuck my head out of the companionway the sail settled down. I watched with the intent to proceed with the lying ahull at the next spasm of heavy flogging but it never came. I went back to bed and 4 hours later woke up to find the boat still sailing acceptably well. The straight track back to where I had dropped the marker indicated a subtle change of wind exactly where I had dropped the marker, backing a few degrees and taking us on a course of 085. The marker was 4 miles behind us so I knew that we had been making good a speed of 2.5 kts. It wasn't much, but at least the boat was moving, and in the right direction.

In the morning the boat was still plodding along. A check of the track indicated that we had been averaging 3 kts. The sky was covered with a thin overcast that still enabled me to see the sun, and there were patches of blue sky here and there.

I received Graham's 5 day wind report in my early Sailmail session and it was anything but promising. For the next 3 days the winds would be too weak for sailing, and for the following 2 days the winds would be marginal. I would continue inching along as best I could, but an arrival in Fremantle before the beginning of May was now highly doubtful. As before, I placed my hopes in a calming sea that would lower the threshold of wind speed for sailing as well as a possible change in forecast.

After thinking about the situation I decided that it was time to try the next tool at my disposal, the whisker pole. This is a long thin pole, adjustable in length by sliding the inner tube in and out of the outer one. It is used for holding the clew (back corner where the sheets are tied) of the headsail out when running downwind, particularly in light airs. It allows the boat to run more downwind and reduces flogging of the sail.

I started off by freeing the pole which was still securely fastened to the toe rail. Then I got my can of WD40 and lubricated the latches at either end and the inner tube through the length adjustment holes. I then brought on the lazy weather sheet to take the load of the sail and eased the working sheet so that I would be able to pull it in and latch the end of the pole over it. Then I set the sail as best I could and spent 20 minutes fiddling with the Monitor to get it to steer with the new sail balance. I sat back and watched and spotted two problems. The first was that because of the position of the clew the sheet was making hard contact with the top rail and would chafe through its covering within a few hours. I got my bath towel, folded it once along its long axis, rolled it up tight around the rail, then tied both ends hard to the rail. I now had a cushion that I could slide up and down the rail and soon the chafing problem was solved.

I also found that no matter how many times I moved the outer end of the pole up to the clew of the sail it would always slide down the sheet until the pole made contact with the shroud. The up and down motion of the pole was turning the shroud into a saw that had already made the side of the pole shiny. The only solution that I could see was to clip the end of the pole into the loop of the bowline knot at the clew. The problem then was to get hold of the clew while the sail was being jerked around by the wind long enough to clip the pole on without losing my balance and grip on the pole. I solved this problem by winding in the sail, but not so far as to place the clew too high to reach, then allowing the lazy sheet to once again take the load while I loosened the working sheet and made the connection. Fortunately there was just enough loop in the bowline for this and soon the sail was set with Jeff doing the steering.

All of this took me over one sweaty hour but the result was worth the effort. I now had more canvas out, the sail was fretting much less, I was able to run more downwind, and the boat was moving noticeably faster. When things settled down the boat was running almost due E at 091T. This was not exactly toward my target of Cape Naturaliste at 066T, but I didn't want to go any farther north where the prospects of wind were poorer, and was happy to make way to the east as fast as possible. We were now past 106E, Cape Naturalist was at 115E, and I would be content to reach 110E before heading N, though no doubt the unfolding realities of the wind and current would dictate otherwise.

Then I put my anxieties about speed and distance and progress aside, had a good look around, and saw that it was a splendid day for sailing that should be enjoyed. The thin cloud cover was allowing plenty of sunlight through, making it the sunniest day in weeks. The sea had calmed down and was an attractive blue, and the temperature high enough to reduce me to T-shirt only. And the boat was quietly ambling on.

[OOPS, I've just discovered that I sent an incorrect position to Pagolin, saying that I was at latitude 30S rather than 36S. I will be sending a correct position soon. Unfortunately I cannot remove the incorrect one from the Pangolin site.]

The sailing day numbers were:

POS 36S41, 106E28
NND 78 nm
DMG 4332 nm
DTG 538

The 78 NND miles were due mainly to the stronger winds during the first half of the day.

Before sunset I had to decide whether to stay on the port tack or gybe and head more directly to Fremantle.

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