Day 66 - New Years Eve Gale

I got lucky with the wind last night. At 11 PM I was all prepared for bed and did one final check of the situation to find the boat pointing north and on the wrong tack. I suited up and went to the cockpit and found that the wind had died and Jeff had lost steerage. I managed to get the boat moving again but could not go to sleep until the wind decided what to do. After 30 minutes of watching over a cup of cocoa I was still seeing wind speeds of 8 and 7 knots so went up to roll in the sail and lay ahull so that I could get some sleep while the wind made up its mind. Fortunately I had held off long enough to see a flicker of life in the wind when I got topside. Soon the wind was up to 11 and 12 knots, I rolled out a bit of sail, and set a course of SE. The wind was supposed to veer back to the NW during the night but at 2.30 AM we were still on the same course. I woke up at 6.30 AM expecting to find us headed the wrong way but to my surprise the wind had remained steady and we had been making 3 knots roughly toward the Horn all night. The day's n-n number would not be as bad as I had expected it to be

Just before noon the wind strengthened to gusts of over 30 knots so I rolled in half of the sail and would have gotten a heavy drenching had I not been fully suited up, including hood. This left us doing 5 knots on course SSE. At this point I could have gybed and headed east but my preference was bias to the south until we reached 52-53S.

At noon our position was 49S16, 98W42, giving us a n-n distance 77 miles in the direction 122T. We were 1260 miles from the Horn.

At 3 PM I went to the cockpit because Jeff was slowly giving ground and putting us on a beam reach. The wind was up in the high 30's classifying it as a Force 8 gale, complete with huge seas breaking here and there. There hadn't been much headsail showing but I managed to wind in even more, leaving about 40 sq ft. Then I noticed a bow in the leech of the sail and saw that the sheet car was positioned all of the way aft on the track. Somehow I managed to kick the car half way up the track, which wasn't easy because I was on the leeward side of the deck and the car was under load. It was a needless drama that could have been avoided had I thought ahead. I immediately went to the starboard side and positioned that car properly for when I gybed the boat. With the shortened sail the boat rode easier - as easy as could be expected under the circumstances. We were essentially running before the gale, taking the sea on the starboard quarter on course 160T. According to the grib file, which had not predicted the intensity of the wind, I could not expect relief for another 12 hours.

Undoubtedly there was a low south of us, but unfortunately I did not have the latest weather fax because the radio reception on the previous night had been the worst for weeks. I hadn't even been able to get good voice reception from Australia or New Zealand.

I removed the tarp over the broken spray dodger window. The wind had pushed part of it through the hole in the window and I was afraid that the stress would enlarge the hole. There had been no danger of losing the tarp because I had a difficult time in removing it from around the frame of the dodger.

Mercifully relief came before 12 hours. The wind began to abate almost imperceptibly in the late afternoon, and at 8 PM it was down to the high 20's which seemed downright calm after the earlier winds. It had not changed direction and we went into the night on course 160T at 3 knots. I was hoping for a quiet and uneventful night.

New Years Day would see me still 1200 miles from the Horn but I didn't mind the longer than expected passage, as long as we got there.

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Day 65 - Oblique Sailing, Oblique Estimate

It was a rough but OK night. The wind was stronger than I had expected, with bouts in the high 20's. I had a bit more headsail than I would have liked, but I never saw the boat speed exceed 6 knots and the sail looked OK when I checked it through the cabin hatch using a spotlight. (The deck light is on the fritz.) But all night (and so far this morning) we were in huge seas and under a constant barrage of big waves slamming into the starboard side of the boat.

The cabin is getting damper every day. Whenever a big volume of water sweeps over the hatches they both drip - not a lot, just a few drips, but it adds up over time. The forward hatch is an otherwise excellent Maxwell with four clamps instead of the usual two that Arnold and I installed in New Zealand. But even as we were installing it I noticed that the rubber seal was not molded for the hatch but appeared to be a straight one that had been bent around the corners, where there were wrinkles. The main hatch is the original Lewmar. It drips only in very heavy weather and I don't think that it is worth replacing - and as I learned from the Maxwell, even a new hatch can drip.

There is dripping into the middle of the cabin from the two Dorade vents that are normally excellent but give problems in very heavy weather. Some of this moisture seems to work its way along the ceiling causing a bit of dripping from the corners above the windows and onto the aft half of the bunks.

Water works its way from the companionway along the ceiling and drips occasionally on the nav table.

Some of the dripping could be from condensation from my breathing and the 8 or 10 kettles of water that I boil a day, not to mention the meals that I prepare.

I've noticed a bit of moisture along the side of the starboard quarter berth section. It could be coming in from the "seabird" vent that I blocked up with plastic in tape. It does not appear to be serious and has not affected the cargo.

Then there is the water that I bring in with my wet clothes.

Overall it isn't as big a problem as it may sound. After all, my food stores are dry, most of my clothes are dry, my vital electronic and electrical equipment is intact, and I sleep in warm and dry bedding. I am not particularly upset because this boat has been under huge assaults from the sea.

I had noticed at 2.30 AM that the boat was headed a bit more south than I would have liked. This morning I had a close look at the wind numbers on the chart plotter and could see that there was room for sailing more downwind. I suited up and went into the cockpit to (1) adjust Jeff to run more downwind (2) roll in a little bit of headsail (3) start the engine. When I got a good look at the sail from the cockpit I could see that there really wasn't that much sail out and as usual I had magnified the danger in my head during the night. Nevertheless I decide to roll in a bit of sail and instead of rounding up to the wind to luff the sail, thereby exposing the boat to broadsides from the big swells, I made the adjustment to Jeff to run close to the wind and coordinated the pulls on the roller line with the boat rolls and slight fluttering of the leech of the sail. This worked fine.

Then I started the engine. It would be a 2-hour run because for 2 days there had been no sunlight on the solar panels and the wind charger was out of action. Of course I welcomed the heat in the cabin.

It looked like another front had passed over us. The sky was clearing and the air crisp. It had been a rough night but the n-n number was going to be pretty good.

At mid morning I baked my first loaf of bread in 5 or 6 days. I really didn't feel like kneading the dough in the rough conditions but I did have a craving for buttered bread.

At noon we were at position 48S34, 100W21, giving us a n-n distance of 102 miles in the direction of 117T. We were 1320 miles from the Horn and 40 miles NE of Matt's position 6 days earlier.

At 1 PM I went to the mast to have a look around. Everything seemed to be in order, including the broken forestay that I had tied to the mast. The Zodiac was firmly in place and so were the diesel containers, most of which were empty. The boat had been hit by many braking waves but most if not all must be impacting the hull rather than the deck.

At 2 PM I gybed. The wind had veered and strengthened. Jeff was having trouble steering on the new tack and I felt that I had too much sail out anyway so I rolled in to leave maybe 50 sq ft of headsail. A small amount of sail seems sufficient with this boat when running before a strong wind and a heavy following sea. The boat was averaging 5 knots, aided no doubt by the current. The wind was supposed to be all over the place this night and I expected to do several gybes before dawn.

Dawn, by the way is early. Last night when I put my head down at 3 AM I noticed through the hatch that the sky was beginning to lighten. Last light is after 9.30 PM, so roughly speaking we're experiencing 6 hours of darkness and 18 hours of light.

While setting the new course I looked at the compass and had one of those Oh Oh moments. In the morning I had noticed spot of oily glister on the cockpit floor. Compass oil crossed my mind but I made the easier but reasonable conclusion that some of the diesel oil that I had spilled during the last fuel transfer hand become dislodged. Wrong. On top of the compass there was now a bubble about an inch in diameter. It was possible that the compass was now slowly losing its oil but I wouldn't know what to do about it. Time would tell.

Later in the afternoon I did some "What If" thinking and one useful outcome was that I now store both of my backup computers in individual clothes drawers. If, heaven forbid, we suffer a serious knockdown or rollover it is doubtful that the primary Toshiba laptop on the navigation table would survive, but the two backups would, and they contain copies of Airmail3 (Sailmail), C-Map, and other vital software. The chart plotter, HF radio, Pactor modem, and spare GPS's are securely mounted and should survive. Of course if I become aware of a dangerous storm approaching I'll put the navigation computer safely away and take other precautions.

This will be a day of zig zag sailing due to the changing wind. At the moment we are headed east. Later we'll gybe and head SSE. I'll probably sail over 100 miles but the Distance Made Good will not be near that - 80 miles if I'm lucky. If I stick my neck out and assume that I close in on the Horn at the rate of 80 miles per day that would put me round the Horn in 16 days, or January 15.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my friends in Canada, USA, and La Paz.

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Day 64 - Moving Along and Happy New Year to Oz

We had a reasonable night. The 9 PM grib file indicated that the wind was as high as it was going to get so I left out the modest amount of headsail for the night. The boat sailed itself all night at over 4 knots and I expected a good n-n number. Movement had been predominantly to the east but I expected to have to tack at midday putting us on a more southerly heading for a while. We were at 47.5S degrees of latitude and I wanted to work our way to 50S to join the main stream of the strong current. The rolling had subsided but was still a problem and my project for the day was to stop the racket of sliding pots, pans, dishes, glasses, cutlery, jars, etc coming from the galley. During spasms of heavy rolling some of this movement was quite violent and threatening a breakage. I would do it by raiding my store of clothes using them to stuff the cupboards up so that nothing moved. (Anyone planning a passage like this would be advised to invest the time and effort to deal with this problem before departure. It cannot be completely eliminated but can be greatly reduced by good design of storage, particularly in the galley. Putting items in plastic baskets and simply cramming the pots and pans into a cupboard hoping for the best isn't good enough.)

For the last few days I had been tempting fate by engaging in some detailed planning of the actual rounding of the Horn. On the chart I saw a tiny dot by looking at the C-Map chart I saw that it was Isla Diego Ramirez at approximately 56S31, 68W43, 35 miles out to sea and smack in the middle of the approach to the Horn. (It has a light).

My preference is to sail close enough to see (and video) the Horn and Tierra del Fuego. This would involve traversing relatively shallow waters and exposing myself to rogue waves. (It was there where Dieter's boat got hit by one, severely knocking it down and fracturing its deck, forcing him to turn around.) I would do this only if I happened to arrive at a time when conditions and prospects look good. Assuming that I did this, I would then pass by the Horn and make for the channel "Estrecho de le Maire", between the mainland and Isla de los Estados (which I think is also known as "Staten Island"). From there I would turn north to pass west of the Falklands. Rightly or wrongly I see advantages to passing west of the Falklands. First it gets me into relatively sheltered waters more quickly, with the S.A. land mass and Isla de Los Estados giving me some protection from the prevailing west winds, the swell, and rogue waves. I am aware of several boats that have been hit hard near the Falklands after having safely rounded the Horn, including "Pink Lady" with young Jessica Watson on board, and it seems to me that passing to the east of the Falklands leaves the boat more exposed to these dangers. Another reason, probably not quite so important in this age of global warming, is the advice by Ocean Passages to pass either west of the Falklands or as close on the east as possible to avoid ice, even in summer. With this route the question of sleep is an issue. The distance between the beginning of the shallows and the far end of the Estrecho de le Maire is about 200 miles. However, on either side of the Horn there are sections where I would be at least 25 miles from land and I should be able to get an hour or two of sleep (keeping in mind the strong current!)

The safer and recommended way is to remain in deep water and stand off 80 miles south of the Horn. (Dieter took this route on his second rounding with no problem.) In that case I would pass to the east of Isla de los Estados and probably east of the Falklands too.

I visited the cockpit at 9AM to start the engine for its daily 1 hour run and to look around. It was a cold, grey, drizzly and misty day. I looked ahead and everything seemed to be in order. Down blow I used the heater to dry and warm my socks and my feet before putting on the sea boots for the day. Then it was the turn of my slippers and beanie, with my wet weather jacket draped over the end of the table to get some of the benefit.

I finally remembered to turn on the carbon monoxide detector, which will remain on until Cape Town.

After going back out to shut down the engine I visited the foredeck for a look around and on close inspection found that the inner forestay was kaput. Most of its remaining wires had broken and it was hanging on by only 5 or 6 wires. I removed the toggle then secured it by passing it down through the two pole rings at the front of the mast, then back up and lashing the two sections of wire together as sort of a cord bulldog clamp. I would have to put up with the clanking until I got a chance to go up the mast and release the top end. This was not the day for that because between everything being wet with the drizzle and the periodic bouts of heavy rolling it was simply too risky to go up the mast. (Thank goodness I had had a guard made for the radar dome.) I would now have to vigilant with the mast. At the first sign of mast pumping (which I haven't noticed on this boat) I would have to shorten sail. However, I was confident that we would be OK because I recalled that Arnold and I sailed much of the passage from Tahiti to Hilo without an inner forestay. (That year-old stay corroded at the base I think because the support wire under the deck was in contact with the electric windlass motor.) Also, the running backstays would give some support.

When I got back into the cabin I saw that the wind had backed and eased as the grib file had predicted. I was expecting the wind to keep backing with me gybing the boat.

At noon our position was 47S31, 102W21, giving us a n-n distance of 100 miles in the direction 100T. We were 1400 miles from the Horn.

At 12.30 I gybed the boat which put us on a nice heading of 110T. The operation was made easier by the fact that there was no longer an inner forestay to get in the way, which reminded me that when I had purchased the boat it didn't have an inner forestay. It's owners had removed it to make tacking easier. I expected the wind to keep backing, which would give me good control over the course. Our speed was 3.7 kt but I'd wait to see where the wind settled before deciding on whether or not to roll out more sail. The weather was now off our starboard quarter and I had make sure that the shower curtain was always in place and the computer protected. The grib files, incidentally, had been extremely accurate in this part of the world.

At mid afternoon I climbed up the mast with a bag of tools to see if I could free the damaged stay, but the roll was too much. However I went back up with a piece of cord and lashed the stay half way up to a mast step. That eliminated the majority of gyrations of the wire.

I let myself get caught by the wind. I dozed off running downwind before a 15 kt breeze with a sizable amount of headsail. A change woke me up and I saw that we were beam to a wind in the high 20's. Half asleep I got into a frantic effort to roll in some sail and there was way too much flogging and snapping of the precious headsail. Fortunately there was no apparent damage and I mentally kicked myself for being so careless, because the grib file had told me to expect a stronger wind. We were then running nicely on course 120T at 4.5 knots.

Australia will be waking up to New Years Eve. I'm presently having a drink wishing all of my friends in Oz a happy new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

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Day 63 - Moving Well

The strong winds came as predicted. At very last light I rolled in more headsail to leave it with about the same area as that of the trysail, 80 sq ft. For much of the night we had Force 7 winds (30 knots) from the NNW off the port quarter, putting us on an excellent course for the Horn. At the 2.30 AM the wind was up to 30 knots but everything looked fine, with the sail giving a steady pull and the hull moving well through the water. At 6.30 AM I woke, looked through the hatch and saw that the sail was OK, so I went back to sleep for another hour.

My first MLSP weather fax in two days showed the situation. We are far enough south now to be in the squeeze zones between highs to the north and lows to the south. The winds are to the east and curve toward the south when they encounter the South American continent. The winds from the latest low are to last another 24 hours. From looking at the fax it appeared to me that winds would actually be lighter further south (say around 60S) closer to the low and away from the accelerating winds of the high. Not that I was complaining. I felt confident that the path to the Horn was now open and reliable. All I had to do was to keep things together.

Of the things that could go wrong the headsail was still no. 1 on my list. It performed very well throughout the night, giving us an average speed of about 5.5 knots, going to 6 knots at times. However, at 8.30 AM I went out and rolled in even more headsail. Happily, the loss of speed is not proportional to the reduction in sail area, at least when going downwind in a favorable current. After the sail reduction we were still doing 4.1-4.5 knots, and this was during a "lull". In a few hours the wind was supposed to pick up again. We were not going to set any speed records for the Horn but by then I had lost my anxieties about being becalmed and I no longer felt compelled to get everything possible out of every wind that came along, and was happy to move at a slower but safer and more comfortable pace. While in the cockpit I looked forward and the Zodiac and diesel containers were all in place. Even the plastic tarp that I had put behind the broken dodger window was still in place.

The sticky sliding hatch was becoming a bigger problem. In order to be able to reach around the end with my fingers so that I could force the hatch open with growing difficulty I would have to leave a 3" gap through which rain and spray from big waves would enter the cabin. The problem began after I removed the lazy jacks and began to put my weight on the hatch's "garage" or "turtle" cover while I tied down the mainsail to the boom. I planned to lift the garage on a calm day to see what was going on.

I then spent time digging through my warm weather clothes. The prize was the set of New Zealand made "Icebraker" skin fitting body stockings made of fine merino wool. I also put aside several track suit bottoms, a pair of arctic socks, and several towels. Fortunately everything but one set of pants was dry. I then put on the Icebrakers. I ended up with 5 layers on top: the icebraker, a thick T-shirt, a wool sweater, and two cotton tops. Below I had underpants, the Icebraker, and my trademark dark track suit pants. In the wings I have a seriously heavy US Navy sweater if it gets very cold. I wore the Icebrakers continuously for 3 or 4 weeks when we crossed the Tasman Sea, and I probably would have fought to the death anyone who tried to get them off me. I suspect that it will be a similar story this time. I put the other items in a plastic bag and stowed them in the head, which had moved from being one of the wettest part of the boat to the driest. ... It was a long, long way from warm and sunny La Paz (sob!).

While making a cup of Hershey's cocoa (great stuff!) I remembered that I had fitted at least one in-line fuse when I installed the Rutland wind charger. A fuse could easily have blown during those wind surges. Another fair weather job.

I decided to shut the refrigerator down, probably until Cape Town. The butter and cheese would probably be OK. There was still quite a bit of turkey sandwich meat which should be OK but whenever it did not pass the sniff test out it would go.

At noon our position was 47S12, 104W46, giving us a n-n distance of 95 miles in the direction 110T. We were a shade under 1500 miles from the Horn.

The wind sagged and backed during the afternoon and I countered by letting out more sail. It was a day of big waves and heavy rolling on the boat where nothing, including myself, seemed to be able to stay in one place. As night approached the wind strengthened and veered, putting me once again on a nice course of ESE. The evening grib file would tell me more.

That reminds me to comment on the outstanding Sailmail service I've been getting out of Chile. With the Chile station I always transmit at more than 2,000 characters a minute. Reception is a bit slower but never less than 1,000 characters a minute. Last night I transmitted at a scorching 4,400 characters a minute and received at over 3,000 characters per minute. Contrast this with the rock bottom 200 characters a minute that I've been forced to endure at times. So my earlier anxieties about the reliability of my Sailmail connections have disappeared. The Sailmail system is not concerned with the total number of characters transmitted. However, it is concerned with airtime and there is an informal weekly quota of airtime, so the faster the transmissions the better for everyone concerned.

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Day 62 - Forestay Back Up

I woke up at 6AM just in time to catch the BBC news. Fortunately I've managed to keep the bunks dry and I had a deep and restful sleep in the warm, dry, and cosy bed. But fatigue, a belly full of hot food (spaghetti in this case) and a comfortable bed aren't sufficient for a good night's sleep: the boat is a major ingredient, and last night the boat had been good. I expected a fair wind until morning and after setting her up for the night I went to sleep without worrying about her. The cabin temperature this morning was a crisp 54F and I had trouble forcing myself out of bed, but at least the sun was shining outside and all of the flooring in the cabin was dry. I went to the drawers and pulled out fresh pairs of socks, fluffy slippers, and track shoes. For the first time in days I was not walking either barefoot or in soggy shoes. Over coffee I realized what a horrid 24 hours in had been, with the gale, the gear failure, and the rolling. The rolling deserves special mention. There is the normal rhythmic and predictable rolling under sail and then there is the incessant 30 and 40 degree rolls and periodic clobbering by waves where everything wants to slide or fall over and there is a constant exertion in everything that you do, including just trying to sit still still and enjoy a hot drink. Deck work becomes particularly challenging. It's probably a survival thing but at the time you don't seem to know that it's happening - you just accept what is and do what has to be done. But now that it was over, comfortable in my warm fluffy slippers and enjoying my third cup of coffee, I felt like I had been put through a cement mixer.

I've been too miserly with my clothes. I've relied on only 4 or 5 sets of underclothes since I left La Paz and have been using the one pair shoes that were falling apart before my departure. I must have 30 sets of fresh underclothes, plenty of arctic socks, 4 or 5 sets of fresh footware - including brand new slippers and sports shoes - and plenty of sweaters. I've tried to managed with little, being very careful to keep my top clothes dry and washing underclothes whenever I can because I know that to raise the standard too much would mean going through set after set of clothes and winding up with a big damp bundle to deal with later. Having said that, if I can't pull out my arctic socks in the Roaring Forties when will I use them? With them I'll have start using my sea boots.

At 7.30 AM the boat was doing 3 knots on a course of 140T. It was time to roll out some more sail.

If sailing conditions got no worse I would move out of the reactive posture and think about doing things like baking my first loaf of bread in days. I also wanted to reinstall the inner forestay as soon as possible. I was still resisting the repair of the headsail not out of laziness but because I didn't want to risk buggering it up before the sailmaker could attend to it.

I suited up including with socks and sea boots and gave both sides of the deck a thorough inspection. Everything looked OK. The shrouds seemed nice and tight and I wondered if the cold weather had caused a slight contraction in the wires. I did notice the mast moving a bit where it passes through the cabin. I had never noticed the movement before but then again perhaps I was being a bit sensitive about the mast following the forestay problem, because I was sure that some movement is normal. Nevertheless it spurred me to get that stay up immediately so I spent the bulk of the morning doing the job. The deck fitting, which is an inverted stainless steel U-bolt with diameter of 1/4" at the thread, had sheared off at the top of the nuts, not below the nuts as the earlier one. The stay had a kink at the lower end and had two broken wires, possibly caused by the shock when the fitting gave way. I had a close look at the broken wires and there was no sign of corrosion: the strands of wire had broken due to stress. The fix may be as simple as replacing that 1/4" U-bolt with something heftier - 3/8" or maybe even 1/2". In the meantime, I got the stay up and under tension to help support the mast. Hopefully it will go the distance because it's under tension only along its length. I decided to leave the running backstays up also to give some support to the mast.

At noon we were position 46S39, 106W57, giving us a n-n distance of 85 miles in the direction 132. The paper chart and the navigation software were in agreement that I was 1560 miles from the Horn. The barometer had risen 9 points in the last 24 hours to 1018. We were headed at 170T so it was well past the time to gybe to the east, but I had been anxious to get that forestay up. I wore ship and went a little bit off the wind because it had lightened to about 10 knots which put us on a course of 105T doing about 3.5 knots. I had been expecting a 19 knot wind but that certainly wasn't happening.

I'm having wind charger problems similar to what Matt described in his Christmas message. During the gale the unit began to free wheel and made a lot of noise for the duration of the blow. I'd seen this before and it was normal. According to the owners' manual a thermostat will disengage the electrics when the temperature inside the unit reaches a certain level, which will happen in high winds. Normally the unit begins to function after it cools off but this hasn't happened so far. As Matt had to do, I climbed up and tied down the blades because 28 knot winds are predicted for tonight. When things are quieter I'll have another try with the unit. If it still fails there are a series of static and running tests described in the owners' manual. Beyond checking the connections and voltage regulator the only thing practical that I can do with the unit is to check its brushes, which Arnold and I did in the first wind charger (that was replaced under warranty). I'll certainly miss its gentle hum.

At 5 PM he boat was ambling along at just over 4 knots under headsail along on a beautiful heading of 115T. I had spent the entire day in my foul weather gear to avoid the hassle of suiting up every time I wanted to go topside. This was probably how it would be for the next couple of months, and why not, it helped keep me warm.

We went into the night with the wind starting to increase and veer toward the north. The wind was still less than 20 knots and our speed was only 4.5 knots but I reduced the headsail to avoid stressing it, particularly later when I would be reducing it again as the wind speed approached the predicted 28 knots. It would be a northerly at that point and we should have an easy lay to the SE. Later in the night the wind would be backing to the NW and weakening, and I was quite relaxed about that.

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Day 61 - Gale, and No Staysail

The weather that night was worse than the grib file had predicted and turned out to be full blown gale.

I wasn't to know this going into the night and I made a valiant effort to sail through the entire event. At 11.30 PM when the wind was supposed to be decreasing it seemed to be getting worse. I went turned on the deck light and checked the sails, and even with the wind approaching 40 knots they were coping well. I knew that the rigging would be OK with that amount of sail area, and the hull was moving remarkably well through the water, given that we were running downwind with the heavy sea coming from the port quarter. What stopped me was something that I had not anticipated: excessive weather helm. For about an hour I had been witnessing a cycle where every 4 or 5 minutes the boat would round up into the wind and the staysail would begin to luff with a terrible racket, then slowly fall off the wind and back to a broad reach. I was too worried about sail or gear damage to allow this to go on, so I suited up and went topside to have a look.

Conditions topside were wild, with huge seas threatening to invade the cockpit. The rolling was so bad that I had to keep low, hang on tight, and keep changing tethers as I moved around the cockpit. I was so thankful for that engine exhaust valve that was guaranteeing that no water would work its way into the engine cylinders. I got behind the wheel, disengaged Jeff, and took the helm myself. No wonder Jeff had been having problems. There were all sorts of dynamics going on. When the wind surged the boat would speed up to more than 7 knots, causing a huge weather helm where I had to use a lot of force to put the wheel on full lock to slowly go back off the wind. When the wind sagged he boat speed would drop to 5 knots and most of the weather helm would disappear. Then there were the waves. Huge waves would pass under the boat causing a violent corkscrew action and occasionally a wave would slam into the stern of the boast causing it to yaw to windward. It wasn't tenable.

Just before midnight I hove to. I tried tacking the boat in order to backwind the staysail but we didn't get even close to crossing the wind, so I gybed. The sails took that gybe remarkably well and soon we were hove to in the classical fashion, with foresail back winded and the helm tied with two lines to weather. This quieted the boat somewhat and with or speed reduced to 2 knots. However, I was disappointed to see that the boat was basically beam on to the seas. I wanted it to be 45 degrees off the wind. Even 60 degrees would have been an improvement. But that was OK because I had learned something important, and in these winds the boat would cope.

I went down below and after watching things for a while I took to the bunk. I was 45 minutes late in responding to the alarm and missed the weather fax. I reset the alarm for 6AM and at 5.45 I responded to the daylight and woke up.

I had coffee at the nav station looking at the numbers and trying to get a feel of the situation. The wind had backed to the SW as predicted, meaning that the front had passed. The wind speed appeared to be in the high 20's. The barometer was at 1006. It had dropped 17 points in less than 24 hours. (More, really because when I tapped the glass the needle went up.) I decided that it was worth having a go at sailing. I suited up, putting on an extra jacket and a wool beanie under the hood. No gloves. Outside I had a quick look around. The main anchor point for the spray dodger on the port side had broken (made of plastic, would you believe) and I tied the strap around a cleat. Otherwise everything appeared to be in order. I saw a patch of blue sky in the horizon. Resuming sail was relatively easy because the boat was already hove to pointing SE. All I had to do was to ease the staysail weather sheet and bring on its lee sheet. The trysail was symmetrical with its two sheets and needed no attention. We took off at 4.5 knots but after 15 minutes of battling the wheel I accepted that there was still too much of a helm problem. What to do? The simple step would have been to simply heave to again, but I wanted to use this opportunity to learn more about the boat, so I decided to drop the staysail and see how she would handle with trysail only. I had never dropped the staysail in these conditions and it wasn't exactly a picnic. I prepared the halyard so that it would pay out without snagging when I made the drop. I then turned the boat into the wind until the staysail was flogging like mad then let fly the halyard. The big flaw to a hanked sail is the need to visit the foredeck. I got to the mast in a crouch then crawled to the inner forestay and pulled down the sail while coping with the heavy rolls. I knew that I had gone forward without any sail tie lines because I had not wanted to take the time to open the companionway and go down to fetch them. Fortunately I had forgotten to remove the peak tie down cord from the bollard so soon the peak of the sail was being held down nicely. I rolled the body of the sail around itself and laid it along the netting. I looked around and noted that the Zodiac inflatable was still securely strapped above the life raft.

Then there was a 20 minute session back at the wheel to see how the boat handled under trysail only. I concluded that sailing was feasible and it took a half dozen attempts before Jeff was set up well enough to take over the steering. While dividing my time between the compass heading at the front and Jeff's airvane at the back I gybed the boat a half dozen times which the trysail took very well. After watching things for 10 minutes I went down below figuring that the worst that could happen would be the boat heaving itself to. However, Jeff was able to hold course and we were moving SE and a modest 2 knots. Down below the cabin seemed very quiet after the turmoil topside. We were really in sort of a moving hove to position, if that makes any sense.

Back at the nav station I drew back the shower curtain and started the laptop computer which I had shut down and left with cover down and plastic sheet over it to protect it from the occasional drips of water onto the nav table. A shaft of strong sunlight came into the cabin through the hatch and I began updating this blog.

I will risk boring experienced sailors with my list of lessons learned:

1. Self steering is not tenable with winds over 30 knots with huge seas.
2. The boat does not heave to properly with the staysail up and backwinded. (Use trysail only next time.)
3. If expecting a blow, drop the staysail when the wind is in the mid-20s.
4. The boat can take it. I have no doubt that if that mythical crew of young guns had taken tricks at the wheel we could have sailed all night at over 6.5 knots.

Just before noon I decided that it was time to try bringing up the staysail. The sea was quite rough but the wind had dropped to the low 20's with gusts into the high 20's. I got the sail up without too much drama and was pleased to see that it looked none the worse for wear after the night's ordeal. This got us moving from 2 knots to 4.5 knots and more at times.

At noon our position was 45S42,108W28, giving us a n-n distance of 85 miles in the direction 127T. The barometer had risen 3 hPa in 5 hours to 1009. The sky had cleared and was blue, but the sea still looked angry and grey. The gale was over. ... Did I really say "bring it on" in my last blog? Never again!

At 2 PM it was time to change the sails for running downwind. The wind had started to veer on its way from SW to W to NW. I decided to drop the trysail, then the staysail, then roll out the headsail. I let the boat to go upwind eased the trysail sheets, then brought it down at the mast. Before I had a chance to secure it I heard a bang and off went the staysail hanging from its halyard along the side of the boat. The deck fitting had failed again. It got a bit messy. Without a sail to steady the boat it began to roll wildly because it was beam on to the sea, the trysail was loose, fretting, and threatening to go back up the mast, and I had to deal with the staysail which was not a simple matter. I had to ease the halyard to put about half of the sail into the water. I then rushed forward and brought the bottom of the sail sail on board then eased more halyard to get the top of the sail onto the deck. While I unhanked it I noticed a broken strand of wire at the base of the stay. It had happened either overnight or from the shock of the parting deck fitting. Once I had the staysail down the hatch and the loose stay secured I tied down the trysail.

There must be a design or materials problem with the staysail setup. It should be stronger than that. It had bothered me before that the first fitting sheared off cleanly with no evidence of corrosion. I'll need expert advice with this. In the meantime, my plan to use the staysail to take some load off the headsail have evaporated. I'm now running a pure sloop and I'll definitely need to rely on a headsail. I take some comfort in the knowledge that we got from Australia through NZ, Tahiti, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest and down the West Coast to La Paz without ever using the staysail, to my recollection. When things quiet down I'll probably put the damaged stay back up with my last U-bolt and use it only to support the mast. I've avoided getting depressed about this latest setback but it has been a big disappointment, though I'm grateful that it happened today and not last night during the gale. I've just lost one level of redundancy and I have a long way to go. I'm already thinking about getting out the sewing kit and begin repairs on the prime headsail.

While doing an engine run I got out the parallel rulers and did some work with the paper chart and the results startled me. The software that I've been using gives the bearing of the Horn as 128T. According to the chart the Horn is at 110T. The paper chart will be correct and I assume that the software has problems with the map projection that increase with distance. This changes my strategy a considerably. If I head east, 090T I am 20 degrees north of the mark. If I head south, 180T I am a whopping 70 degrees off the mark. I can head ENE at 60T and be no worse off that heading SSE at 160T. I expect to do a lot more easting in the next few days even if the heading includes a northern component. I am far enough south now that winds is no longer an issue.

At 6.30 PM the wind had moderated to the low 20's and we were moving at 4.5-5.0 knots on course 120T. However, the swell was still huge with waves crashing into the hull with monotonous regularity. I had formulated the policy before I left La Paz that in these situations of huge swells I would minimize my time on deck in case one of those occasional waves of 2 or 3 times normal size (aka rogue waves) slam into the boat and try to knock it down. The wind was supposed to veer during the night and with my new insight regarding my position I would be gybing when our course reached 160T.

-------------------- THANK YOU -------------------

Finally, I'd like to put my problems aside and thank everyone for the Christmas greetings they sent me through the blog. Brenda forwarded them all to me and I enjoyed reading every one of them. You can imagine how much they meant to someone in my situation. Love and best wishes to all.

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Day 60 - On the Move and Preparing for a Blow

The night's grib file gave me a big, big jolt. It predicted a steadily strengthening and veering wind throughout the day. At 6 PM the following day it would be from the north at 25 knots and at 9 PM it would hit 33 knots. The 2.30 AM weather fax showed the high to the north, the low to the south, with us in the squeeze zone with a cold front headed our way. From this I would not have been able to interpret 33 knot winds but I had to defer to the weather models. I would have to prepare the boat for a blow. Night had set in and I wanted to avoid bringing in the whisker pole in the dark, particularly since I had practically no experience with it. I figure that I could wait until morning and deal with the pole in 16 and 17 knot winds.

I was up at 6 AM and saw that as expected the wind had veered and we were on a beautiful heading, 120T, doing close to 5 knots with a wind that had strengthened to maybe 17 knots. Over coffee I kept thinking about how I would bring in the whisker pole. A regular spinnaker pole has a cable running along its full length by which one can "fire" (release) the latch at a far end of the pole by pulling on the cable at any convenient place along the pole. However I could not set this up on the whisker pole because of its variable length. I would have to fire the latch by pulling at the loop of cord right at the end. Therein lay the problem: how to get the pole off the halyard. I went on deck with a series of fallback plans. I needed to avoid a mistake lest I wind up with a mano a mano struggle with the sheet under load for the pole, a struggle that I would not win and possibly wind up with a broken nose, black eye, or worse. The first plan one was to reach the firing loop with the boat hook, pull back to open the latch, then lift the pole off the sheet. I pulled hard enough to fire the latch but I could not lift the end of the pole off the sheet. Then I went to the cockpit, eased the sheet, and started rolling some headsail. The plan was to lower the stakes by reducing the pressure on the sail. I managed to do this but it was not pleasant watching the headstay jerking violently and the headsail snapping at its leech during the operation. Then I disconnected Jeff and let the boat steer itself into the wind. I let out a bit more sheet and back on the foredeck managed bring in the sheet and lift the pole off quite easily because the latch had indeed been opened.

The next phase was to set up the sail configuration for heavy weather which not surprisingly meant putting up the trysail and staysail. I wasn't being rushed so I did this slowly and deliberately, making a few improvements as I went along.

One of the improvements was in response to a valuable tip from Jim Putt, which was to use both sheets on the trysail. The weather sheet could be use to control the distance of the back of the sail from the centre of the boat, which would be too great using the lee sheet alone. This involved some minor rerouting of the weather sheet, which must deal with the wind steering control lines in its path.

I had expected trouble in raising the trysail because the track was on the weather side of the mast with the wind pushing the sail into the boom. Fortunately it proved to be amazingly docile, even when it cleared the boom and the wind caught it. So far it has been a very easy sail to manage.

I then spent 20 minutes tidying up the cockpit lines. I wind all lines in loose loops around winches. If one of the loaded winches has to be used to adjust the line tension I throw to loops of rope off the winch and get to work. At the mast I use the spinnaker rings, bollards, and mast steps as belaying pins. The "granny bars" at the mast are the shrouds which are athwartships and close to the mast, as well as the safety rope that I have described before. Today I simply pressed my back to the shroud while I hoisted the trysail throughout the heavy rolling.

Managing the cockpit lines has become more complicated with the advent of the trysail and staysail. The big issue is that there are not enough winches and bollards (cleats) to permanently assign on a one-to-one basis. On the current port tack, for example, there are three sheets under tension but only two winches. I had to carefully unload the headsail sheet and put it onto a cleat which it is sharing with another line. On a starboard tack it is worse because in addition to the three sheets there is also the roller furler line under tension, so it must be carefully transferred to a bollard. (This boat had no bollards on the outside of the coaming when I purchased it and I don't know how they managed to sail it. I've put two on each side and could use a third because frequently I have to double up on a bollard.) The manipulation of these lines invariably results in crossed lines when they are required, so every tack, gybe, and sail changed must be carefully planned ahead of time to make sure that the required lines, winches, and bollards are free and available.

This work took two hours and I thought it might be a good time to run the engine and heat the cabin before the wind picked up. While waiting for the kettle to boil for a cup of hot chocolate I squatted in front of the heater warming my feet and tingling hands. This engine, with its reliability as a source of electric power and cabin heat with thate great little Red Dot heater have been one of the joys of this cruise. Great investment.

Considering that we are at lat 45S I must confess that the weather has been milder than I had expected. I am seeing cabin temperatures in the low 50's. Crossing the Tasman Sea in winter was much worse, with temperatures consistently near freezing (or worse, for all I know). We had no heater, unreliable and grainy weather faxes, no self steering, totally inadequate battery capacity, very limited communication, and a well meaning but inexperienced captain. (In Fremantle I might have a medal struck: The Pachuca Order of Valor to present to the crew, Brenda and Arnold, who endured these conditions.) Improvement in equipment aside, I remember saying twice when we were at Eden in Australia that I was more afraid of the Tasman in winter than the Horn in summer. So far - and that is a very important caveat - so far that observation has been correct.

At noon we were at 44S50, 110W04, giving us a n-n distance of 95 miles in direction 110T. The Christmas wishes of friends for good winds had come true. We were just a shade over 1700 miles from the Horn and just east of the longitude of La Paz which was 4000 miles directly north. The wind was about 15 knots from the north and we were making about 4.5 knots on course 125T which exactly what I had been wishing for. The boat was ready for any gale that came along, which was possible because the barometer had dropped 10 hPa in 24 hours. All I needed to do was to roll in the rest of the headsail and rely on the trysail and staysail. The pressure cooker dish of kidney beans, lentils, and corn had been very successful (for those who like rice 'n beans) and I heated some more for lunch. The rest I would put away for another day.

At 2.30 PM I had a look at the situation. The wind had veered more to the north and picked up speed to about 22 knots. The boat was regularly exceeding 6 knots and was handling it well, with no wave slamming because we were running diagonally to the wind and seas. However, I was concerned about the headsail as usual and decided to roll what little there was of it in to avoid having to do it later when the wind hit 30 knots. Winding the sail in was easier than I had expected which suggested that there had not been very much pressure on it. This slowed the boat down by almost a knot but I had no regrets because I very much wanted to have this sail see me to South Africa. I visited the foredeck to make sure that the staysail lines were ready for a gybe that would have to be done in the middle of the night when the high winds would clock back to the NW the W then SW. While I was up there I stood up holding on the a shroud and watched the long procession of big grey waves making their way to the boat. The scene looked pretty wild, with drizzle blowing sideways and big rain clouds on the horizon. I savored the moment and would try to keep it in my memory. The grib file took me to noon the following day and even then the SW wind would be at over 20 knots. I was comfortable with the sail plan of the boat and as far as I was concerned Bring It On because I was enjoying the good progress that we had been making. We had coped through two heavy gales in the Tasman lying ahull and side on to the weather. In one of our brief forays to the cockpit I had then noticed the wind speed at 55 knots. I figured that properly hove to with the current sail plan Pachuca would be able to weather 60 knot winds in relative comfort.

At 6 PM the wind speed was varying. At one point it was well above 25 knots and the boat was moving at 6.2 knots. A few minutes later the wind dropped and the boat speed fell back to 5 knots. Regardless, the boat was moving amazingly smoothly through the water, with no sign of undue agitation or stress, though once in a while the hull would be clobbered by a well targeted wave and water would sweep the deck. Our course was averaging a very good 125T.

At 9 PM we were getting 30 knot winds as predicted. Things got rough out there and the boat got knocked around a bit but nothing serious. The wind charger had overheated and was free wheeling to protect itself. At times I saw boat speeds in excess of 7 knots. According to the grib file we were at the peak of the wind and it would shortly moderate somewhat.

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Day 59 - Heading East with Whisker Pole

At 9 PM I received my daily grib file covering the following two days. It predicted that the wind would veer toward the north throughout the night. The boat was already headed SSW and I wouldn't countenance heading even further to the west throughout the night. To tack would have put me heading east or maybe ENE. So at the very last light I dropped the mainsail and the staysail and headed downwind with just a bit of jib. As I knew expected our speed was cut in half and we began to experience regular bouts of heavy rolling, but at least we had gained 40 degrees on the wind and were headed SSE. There would be a point before midday when I would put the boat on port tack as the wind veered to the north. When it veered enough I would bring up either the mainsail or the trysail. At least I could go to sleep knowing that we were making some easting.

I was up at 7.30AM to find a disappointing situation. The wind had not veered, still coming from the ENE, nor had it strengthened as predicted. After breakfast I gybed the boat which was easy to do since I had only a small bit of headsail out, and managed to establish a course of 0100, about 30 degrees off the wind coming from the aft port side. If I tried to steer any closer to the wind the big swell would overcome the sail.

I had not run the engine the previous day to see if the generous sunlight would be enough to tide the batteries over night, and I learned that the answer was no. At 2AM the house bank was down to 11.9V and I had to use the crossover switch to transfer power from the starter bank to the house bank. I started the engine in the morning soon after the gybe, with the batteries again down to 11.9V. The drive of the engine even at a low 1100 rpm was enough to reduce the apparent wind sufficiently to collapse the headsail so I motored with bare poles directly downwind on course 110T. I was forced to keep the rpm and speed down lest the apparent wind drop to the point where Jeff could not continue steering the boat as he was amazingly doing down wind, with an apparent wind of less than 10 knots, and under engine. The plan was to motor for 2 hours which would charge up the battery, warm the cabin, get me another 7 miles downwind, and buy time to give the wind a chance to veer and strengthen - maybe.

Sailing downwind is not my strongest point of sail as a sailmaster. I don't like running with the mainsail out. I've never tried poling out the headsail but it seemed to me that with the rolling and light winds more stress would be put on the sail since it would be slatting back and forth hard instead of collapsing. Nevertheless I might be forced to try it. I considered the asymmetric cruising spinnaker. It would take a full hour of hard work to clear out the V berth area, pull the chute out of the sail locker, then try to cram the damaged headsail into the sail locker because there would be no room above the sail locker for both sails. At best it would be a daytime sail, and on this day I was particularly reluctant because it was overcast with rain clouds on the horizon. I had never considered using a spinnaker in the Roaring Forties but pushed to desperation I would do it. That left me hoping for a stronger wind. I can run downwind fairly well with a strong wind.

Some minor equipment issues. My head torch collapsed last night for the last time and I've brought a spare one into use. Also, I noticed that one of the two lights that illuminate the compass card has gone out. I have spares and will await a calm clear day to make the replacement because it is a tricky procedure. Those lights do not last very long. It is an old compass and undoubtedly uses incandescent globes instead of LEDs.

Conditions in the cockpit didn't look too bad so I decided to do something constructive during the engine run and replace that blown compass light. The time passed quickly, but I must have spent over 2 hours on the job because after putting away the tools I shut down the engine and saw that I had run it 4 hours. That was by far the longest engine run since La Paz but it was well justified given the condition of the batteries, the wind, etc. After shutting down the engine I rolled out half of the headsail and put us on a port broad reach. The wind had veered 10 or 15 degrees and had strengthened by a knot or two and the sail was able to cope with the rolls. We were making 2.5 knots to the east and I was hoping that the wind would keep veering. The gloomy overcast of the early morning had been replaced by brilliant blue sky and I was feeling a bit better about things.

Our noon position was 44S18, 112W10, giving us a n-n distance of 65 miles to the SSE.

An hour later the house bank had stabilized to a satisfactory 12.8V. The wind had strengthened a bit and I responded by letting out more headsail and our average speed went up to 3.3 knots still to the east. During lunch it occurred to me that I should be able to find two small LED lights for the compass. Wiring them in and fixing them to the inside of the dome would be little problem. I had one spare compass light remaining and I hoped that it would see me through to Australia.

At 5 PM I visited the foredeck for a good look around. I sat comfortably astride the soft Zodiac as though it were a saddle and enjoyed watching the bow cutting through the water. Then my eye caught sight of the whisker pole, the one that I had purchased almost at the last moment in Berkovich's boat yard, La Paz. I told myself that I'd have to try it out one day. Without any particular intentions I freed the lower mast ring of some lines then pushed it up to the next ring up. Then I freed the whisker pole from the deck and started fooling around with it - checking the action of the locks at the ends, how to line up the extension buttons, that sort of thing. Then I had a go at it. I foolishly extended the pole almost full length, forgetting that the headsail was only 2/3 rolled out. I hooked the outer end on the jib sheet but no matter how much I tried I could not push the pole out far enough to lock the inboard end into the mast ring. I decided to go to the cockpit to ease the sheet. The outer beak of the pole seemed secure on the jib sheet but I wasn't sure that the latch was closed. As a precaution I tied a few loops around the middle of the pole using the end of a spinnaker halyard. I went back to the cockpit, eased the sheet, the headsail started flogging, the end of the pole jumped off the sheet, and the pole slid along the opposite rail and into the water. I was now deep in Keystone Kops territory. The pole was now astern of the boat following like a big metallic fish and the only thing between it and Davey Jones' locker was my hastily tied loops of halyard. I started hauling fast. Soon the end of the pole appeared out of the water and I pulled it aboard. I told myself that I shouldn't quit and had to get something up, just some little baby step of success to get me started on this road of whisker poles. I collapsed the pole almost to the minimum length and clipped the outer end to the jib sheet, which wasn't too difficult to do, and making sure that the latch of the beak was closed. Then after a lot of pushing and fighting with the jib sheet I managed to get the inboard end of the pole latched onto the mast ring. At the cockpit I hauled in the jib sheet and the result looked pretty credible. The mast ring could have been higher, but the pole length was about right and the sail was being held out and billowing beautifully. I began to see boat speeds of over 4 knots instead of just over 3 knots. I also found that I could go off the wind another precious 5 to 10 degrees. I had been fretting about our downwind performance and maybe I had had the solution all along, thanks to Bob Carrol's suggestion about a whisker pole back in La Paz. But there had to be an easier way to put up the pole and I was sure that I'd get better at it in time.

I had been planning to have a tequila sundowner as a Christmas toast to my Australian friends on the other side of the international date line, where it was Christmas Day. This whisker pole baby step added a nice edge to the occasion. Tomorrow would be Christmas on this side of the date line and of course I would have another sundowner to the great people that I've met in that triangle from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest (including Vancouver), down the west coast of the USA, to La Paz.

At 7 PM the pressure cooker was working on a mixture of kidney beans, lentils, corn, and a flavour cube. I was feeling pretty mellow and amiable with the tequila sundowner under my belt. The boat was still moving at 4.5 knots on a heading of 105T. The wind had not veered as predicted but at least I was headed south of east. Given the synoptic situation, where I was in the westerly flow of winds between a high to the north and a low to the south, I was expecting the wind to last throughout the night. The 9 PM grib file would tell me more.

Hic!

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Day 58 - MERRY CHRISTMAS HO HO HO!

I know that there are regular readers of this blog in just about every continent of the world, and unfortunately I will never get to meet and know most of them. To each of you out there I wish a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Never give up on your dreams and imagination.

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My decision to put up the mainsail late yesterday turned out to be a very good call, but it was a near thing. At 2 AM I woke up to the occasional sound of the boom banging with the roll of the boat, which meant a weak wind. I got out of bed resigned to dropping the mainsail and putting the trysail back up in the hopes of eking out a knot or two of speed. When I got to the nav station I saw that instead of a 6 kt wind as I had expected it was closer to 9 knots. During the hour that I was up to receive the weather fax and listen to the news I watched the situation and decided to leave the sail up. The grib file indicated a slight strengthening of the wind coming soon (We're only talking about one knot more.) which gave me some hope.

I woke up at 7 AM to the sound of water rushing past the hull and the gentle hum of the wind charger. At the nav station I saw that the wind speed was up to 11 and 12 knots and we were making over 4 knots. We were headed south and with the stronger wind I was able to broaden our reach and at 9 AM I was having coffee as I watched with great pleasure the wind speed numbers jumping between 5.0 and 5.2 knots on a course of 150T. (I knew that this surge probably wouldn't last, but what a great start to the day!) My little mainsail gamble hand paid off and the trysail was still happily secured on the deck waiting for its next call.

The grib file frame for this time showed an interesting picture: the winds were all from the west and steadily increasing in speed moving from north to south. One degree to my north - 60 miles away - the speed was 8.7 kt. At my position the speed was 11.2 kt and 52 miles to the south it was 13.9 knots. Yes, one cannot take grib files that literally, but the principle was there: the farther south the better the winds. I had not planned to cross latitude 50S into what is known as the "Furious Fifties" until I was closer to the Horn in order to minimize our exposure to strong winds, but I was ready to go there now. I knew that I would be hammered by 2 or 3 gales or worse, but I figured that simply hove to I would still be making a good 2 knots in the strong current and wind.

It was a bright, clear, and crisp winter-like day (a cold front had passed over), and quite chilly by my standards. At 9 AM the cabin temperature was 57F (brrrr!)

At 10AM the sails started to fret. A big swell had started arriving from the south, no doubt from that low. I put the boat on a beam reach, increasing our apparent wind and more importantly meeting the swell more head on. That quieted things nicely. Fortunately we were still headed slightly east of south, at 165T.

I harvested my second batch of mung beans after two days of soaking. It was quite good, though not as sweet as my first batch. The next time I'll give the germination a boost by soaking the container in warm water after 6 hours.

Just before noon I put a lb of red kidney beans in the pressure cooker to soak over night. Success would mean variety and another source of protein.

At noon our position was 43S16, 112W37, giving us a n-n distance of 90 miles in the direction of 146T. We were now less than 1900 miles from the Horn. In the last 24 hours the barometer had risen 6 hPa to 1020. This was my third day of plotting on the next chart that was to a larger scale than the previous one of the SW Pacific, and covering the entire west coast of South America including Drake Passage. (Do not set off on a W-E rounding of the Horn without this chart!!! Not negotiable.)

I decided to take advantage of the good weather to top up the diesel tanks. It wasn't the ideal day in that the heavy swell from the south was causing a lot of roll. But the air was dry and there was no spray reaching the cockpit. It is best for the diesel to keep the tanks full, and besides, I wasn't sure of when I'd get my next opportunity to refuel. I brought a 28 liter (6 gal) container from the rail, put 75 ml of additive into the tank even though I knew that the diesel in the container had been treated, then started transferring fuel using a scrupulously bucket. I had put on 16.3 engine hours since the last tank fill so I expected the refill to require about 30 liters. The tank overflowed well before I emptied the container. I waited a few minutes to give the two fuel tanks a chance to equalize then put in another liter or two and once more the tank overflowed. My most pessimistic estimate is that it took 20 liters to fill the tank, yielding a consumption rate of only 1.23 liters per hour. Is is not far out of line from my previous calculation of 1.37 liters per hour. Most of the running of these latest 16.3 hours had been at only 1100 rpm. I should have about 90 liters of fuel remaining on deck, giving me about 73 engine hours for recharging the batteries @ 1100 rpm.

Afterwards I had a cockpit salt water bath from the neck down. Very bracing. I get the salt water by reaching over the side and waiting for a roll of the boat to fill the bucket. It is a safe procedure. Most of my weight remains in the boat and I keep a shoulder firmly into one of the 2" diameter legs of the cockpit frame. The bucket would not last long were I to throw it over the side with a lanyard attached to its handle.

As the afternoon progressed the wind veered and we began to head 190T, west of south. I considered dropping the mainsail and running more downwind with just the jib but the wind was so light - less than 10 knots - that I figured that the change would result in greatly reduced speed and lots of rolling. I could afford to run south a bit more and wait for a better opportunity to head east.

At 9PM we were still moving south, 197T at 3.7 knots.

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Day 57 - Langsam Langsam Aber Weiter

I had the last onion with my evening meal. I wound up throwing away a lot of bad onions but I had expected this because I had left La Paz with LOTS of onions, which I ate almost every day. After throwing out the last of the slimey and smelly onions I thoroughly cleaned out the ice box and plastic trays with a bleach solution. There was now a lot of good storage space available in that ice box

The evening grib file predicted that the wind would clock back throughout the night from NW to W to SW. This meant a gybe at around dawn and I hoped to delay it until daylight.

The 2.30 AM weather fax showed the benevolent low at 991 hPa directly south at about lat 50S. A cold front would pass over me during the night and it looked like the backing of the wind predicted by the grib file was the result of the low moving to the east. The wind had backed somewhat but our heading was still to the south of east, at about 105T. I set the alarm for 5.30 AM which would put me in daylight after I suited up for the gybe.

But at 4.30 AM I was up again and saw that we were heading due east. I wasn't going to get any more sleep until this gybe had been executed so I decided to do it then, in the dark. When I emerged on deck at 4.45 AM (La Paz time) I was surprise to find enough weak light in the sky to see reasonably well, though I still needed the head torch and deck light. It turned out to be first light and by the time I had completed the gybe dawn was firmly established. The weather was still overcast and drizzly. The wind had weakened to perhaps 12 knots and we were now headed on course 170 at only 3.0-3.3 knots. The important question was how long the wind would last, weak or otherwise. I expected our heading to change toward the east as the wind backed. We were now east of long 114W and closing in on lat 42S.

Matt, the intrepid sailor rounding the Horn in his small boat, had taken off like a jack rabbit while I was hove to during those days of my wind problems and had sailed right off my chart, putting him over 500 miles away. I wished him Godspeed and was interested in following his progress but otherwise had no concern whatsoever about the increasing gap between us. I was too busy dealing with my own priority, which was to get this boat around the Horn safely. That night Victor had sent me a comforting message from Fremantle: "Langsam langsam aber weiter" which I think was translated in his subject line, "Slowly slowly catchee monkey".

At 11 AM I was woken from my nap by a dose of sunlight passing through the hatch. Thirty minutes later I went topside to find that 2/3 of the sky had cleared to the north and above were cirrus and cirrostratus clouds. I saws two birds prowling the waves on the port side of the boat. After a worrying sag in the wind it had picked up as the grib file had predicted and we were making over 4 knots on course 135T from a 14 knot wind. I checked the meter and the battery bank was netting a positive 1-5.5 amps depending on the status of the refrigerator in its cycle. The solar panels were delivering 7.5 amps and the wind charger was averaging about 1 amp.

Our noon position was 42S01, 113W45, giving us a n-n distance of 77 miles in the direction 125T. We had managed to make some tangible progress throughout the past difficult days of becalming's and disappointing winds. We were now south of Puerto Montt, Chile 1800 miles to the east, and less than 2000 miles from the Horn. After the noon report I went topside to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

Afterwards I had a look at the sprouts (needed more time) and the yogurt. For the second consecutive time the yogurt was a disappointment. I wound up with slightly sour milk rather than yogurt. Brenda had warned me that the strain would weaken over time, and I figured that is what had happened. It was a great run while it lasted and I had many great deserts of cold yogurt with raisins.

As night approached I decided to put up the mainsail. I was betting that the SW/S winds would last the night and would gradually die down. The prospects of reaching all night in a moderating wind warranted the trouble of raising the mainsail. Not unusually, I didn't miss the opportunity to give myself a hard learned lesson. The track of the trysail is on the port side of the mast, to leeward of the mainsail track because we were on a starboard tack. I decided to get clever and raise the mainsail while the trysail was up. The hoist went fine, The trysail helped drive the boat as I hoisted, then the mainsail peeled right past it with no problem. I wound up with the mainsail drawing and working with the trysail snuggled behind it doing nothing. I didn't think it a good idea to leave the two sails up together because it might lead to chafing, so I went forward to drop the trysail. It would not come down because the battens and slides of the mainsail were to leeward and crowding the trysail track. I tried brute force, pulling on the trysail from part way up the mast, luffing the mainsail, etc but nothing worked and in the end I had to tack the boat which back winded all of the sails as well as almost stopping the boat. Then I could work in peace and bring the trysail down and secure it on the deck. I then gybed the boat to get back on the starboard tack. So next time, trysail down before mainsail up.

At 9 PM boat time it was still daylight and we were moving at 4.5 knots with a 12 knot wind on the starboard beam, heading 135T. It had been a splendid day of sailing, with a good strong wind of over 15 knots all afternoon giving us a speed averaging about 5 knots using just the trysail, staysail, and a bit of headsail.

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Day 56

The evening MSLP weather chart showed a low moving across to the south. A cold front had passed over our position, explaining the inclement weather and drop of 6 hPa in pressure over 6 hours. The grib file indicated a marginal wind at 6 AM that would steadily strengthen to 18 knots from the NW by midnight. I could not see beyond that but it looked like the good winds would last for many hours. Time would tell.

At 1035 GMT I began a prearranged radio schedule going through four different frequencies and failed to hear anything from Jim who was transmitting from the Fremantle Sailing Club facility. It was particularly disappointing because Jim had invited Brenda and Stephen to join him. I did notice that reception from Radio Australia at 9.580 MHz was less clear than usual.

At 9.30 AM I freed the wheel and started sailing. The trysail and headsail were already up and I rolled out a bit of headsail. In the feeble 7 kt WNW wind the best we could do was slightly aft of a beam reach putting us on course 210T at the speed of one knot. It was just a start, according to the grib file. The day was overcast with visibility to the horizon. There was weak sunlight getting through the thin cloud cover.

I took to opportunity to run the engine 1.3 hours while the wind was weak. I found that Jeff was able to steer the boat so I went below and spent an hour doing a little job that might save me grief later. The sliding hatch jams up when it is extended all of the way and twice when I had it in that position to keep the rain out I've had such a difficult time opening the hatch that I considered going out the cabin hatch so that I could push it in from outside. I treated it with WD40 which freed the action for all but the end of the travel of the hatch. During rains I've been forced to leave a 1 inch gap to allow me to the my fingers around the end of the hatch for a backward pull, but of course that has allowed some moisture to get into the cabin. Today I fixed a stainless steel fitting at the end of the hatch to which I can attach a line enabling me to pull back hard with one hand while banging it with the other. The system works well enough.

While doing this work I noticed that the sails had stopped fretting and when I shut the engine down I confirmed that the wind had strengthened to maybe 9 knots. I eased the heading a few more degrees which put us on a heading of 180T at speed 2.1 knots. (The "T" denoting a true heading is important because the compass variation in this part of the ocean is a whopping 20 degrees to the east and increasing fast as we move south. Thus 180T corresponds to 160M.)

At noon our position was 41S15, 115W09, giving us a dismal n-n distance of 19 miles.

Before the wind picked up I had a go at sewing the webbing of that slide on the mainsail, but I found that even when I put the boat on a beam reach there was too much rolling. I decided to do the job in either calmer conditions on a beam reach or perhaps in the cabin if I took the mainsail down. There are good reasons for removing the mainsail for heavy weather. Less windage is the obvious one, but another is that it would allow me to drop the storm trysail two feet down to just above the boom, and the lower the trysail the better because it reduces the turning moment on the mast. I used the thread picker from Brenda's sewing kit to free the webbing, which was hanging on literally by a thread. I wanted to reuse it because the spare webbing in the sewing kit was a little too wide for the slide.

I then prepared the mainsail for stronger winds by using a long line to better secure the mainsail with 11 loops of rope along the length of the boom.

The wind had picked up to perhaps 12 knots and we were on a heading of 190T. I figured that with the stronger wind I could gybe on an arc of 80 degrees or less. I was willing to go as far as due east because it was time that started to work my way eastward, but I was not willing to head north of east. Happily, the gybe found us on a broad port reach on course 125T, and we were making 3.0 knots. I only had a small of headsail out and I kept it so in case I needed to gybe later and besides, with the expected 18 kt wind I figured that the modest sail plan would give me all of the boat speed that I wanted.

I had lunch hopeful that the impending winds of that low to the south would give us good progress for the next two days. And speaking of food, I had eaten the last of the eggs the previous night, that of Day 55. Of those last 4 eggs one was bad. I had set out from La Paz with 4 dozen eggs and of those 48 eggs, 3 were accidentally cracked and 3 went bad. They spent the first 3 weeks or so in the ice box where they could get some of the coolness from the adjacent refrigerator, and during that time I rolled them over every day or two. When space became available I moved them into the refrigerator and ceased the practice of rolling the eggs over. Under those circumstances I would consider 50 days to be the outer limit for store bought eggs. I still had plenty of cheese and enough turkey sandwich meat for another two weeks or so.

For my nap I switched over to the starboard bunk, which was now to leeward. I was now sleeping with two blankets, one below, one above. Before lying down I poured some La Paz water from my reserve bottle into the kettle and boiled it. After my nap the water had cooled just enough for making the next batches of yogurt and mung bean sprouts. We had just crossed the meridian of 115W and were now on the east side of it for the first time since 16 Nov, when we had been 16 degrees north of the equator.

At 7 PM I went topside for a look around. We were in fog with visibility down to a mile, but I didn't care because we were still moving to the ESE at 3.8 knots and for once I was happy with the wind.

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Day 55 - Fog, Drizzle, Disappointing Wind

The evening grib file forecast favourable winds for the next two days, which lifted my spirits. I knew that I would have to gybe the boat during the night. The wind would veer to the north and the 3 AM frame captured an abrupt shift of wind direction where E of 116W the wind would be strong from the north and west off 116W it would be strong from the west. I interpreted this to mean that the effect of the high to the north would be giving way to the low to the south. The barometer had dropped 2 points during the late afternoon. I went to bed thinking about how I would gybe the headsail which was rolled out to almost a number 2 and I would want to protect from heavy flogging in the strong wind.

At 12.30 AM I woke up and checked the boat. We were heading due west. The wind had strengthened to 20 knots and had shifted to the north early so it was time to gybe. There is a psychological barrier to be crossed in making the transition from the warm and cosy and safe comfort zone of the cabin to the wind and waves and drizzle and darkness and perils of the deck. I suited up, turned on the deck light, put the head torch on, then went out to the cockpit. I switched on the compass light then disengaged Jeff so that the boat would swing to starboard from the broad reach into the wind. While this was happening I brought on the leeward sheet of the trysail to prepare it for the gybe. Then I went in front of the binnacle to bring in enough headsail to allow it to clear the inner forestay during the gybe. In the strong wind this required a combination of turning the wheel by hand to put the boat harder into the wind, easing off a bit of sheet, waiting for the flutter of the luffing headsail, then pulling in a couple more rolls of headsail with the furler line. After several iterations the headsail was ready. Then I took the wheel and steered the boat to the port from NW to W to SW and to S where the wind was abaft, then we crossed it for the gybe. The trysail tacked itself and I let fly its weather sheet which was easy to do because it was wound around the spinnaker winch next to the wheel. It began to draw perfectly, and we were now on a viable port tack. I let the wheel go and went forward to ease the weather sheet on the backwinded headsail and bring on its lee sheet. Both sails were now in order. Back behind the wheel I set the course to SE, which put us on a broad reach, set up Jeff to the new wind direction off the port quarter, and the gybe was completed. I found that the trysail and the small area of headsail were ample for the conditions. We were making 4.5 knots in the direction that I wanted to go, the boat was moving very smoothly, and that was good enough for the rest of the night. Perhaps in daylight I might put up the staysail. I decided to stay up for the 2.30 AM weather fax. I made a cup of hot chocolate and listened to Radio New Zealand because ABC and BBC were not yet up in the frequencies that I use.

The 2.30 AM weather fax showed no discernible change in the synoptic situation in my part of the ocean.

At 5 AM the wind veered back to the NW, contrary to the grib file prediction, and I had to gybe back to the original (starboard) tack. Fortunately it was an easy operation because the wind had moderated to about 12 knots and the headsail did not have to be rolled in. I had to expect more wind changes and I needed to put up more sail, so thank goodness that dawn was only an hour away.

I woke up at 8.30 AM to find that the wind had not altered and we were still headed SE at a modest 2.2 knots. After breakfast I altered course 20 degrees to move us from a broad reach to just aft of a beam reach. I then hoisted the staysail and let out enough headsail to slightly overlap the staysail. This boosted out speed to a modest 2.8 knots on course SSE, but we were dealing with a breeze below 12 knots. I would have liked more east component to our heading, but that opportunity would surely come later. The storm trysail had proven to be very useful, well behaved, and easy to manage in these wind conditions and had become available to me just in time.

At 11.30 AM the wind began to falter and the sails began to flog. I went topside to find the boat surrounded by fog with visibility less than 2 miles. I decided that this was a good time for an engine run. I had not run the engine the previous day and on this day I could not expect much help from the solar panels or the wind charger. I rolled in the headsail, started the engine, then put the boat on a beam reach to keep the trysail and staysail quiet. I hand steered during the 90 minutes of the engine run during which time it began to drizzle. So it was a pretty miserable day which I took amazingly well, probably because I was warm and dry under my wet weather gear. Under my hood was my wool beanie, and I was wearing gloves. It proved to be good timing on the engine run because it carried the boat through the sag in wind speed and afterwards we were able to keep sailing due south with trysail, staysail, and a bit of headsail at 2.5 knots. It wasn't very fast and the direction wasn't the best, but we were sailing and going deeper into the Roaring Forties which so far had been the Murmuring Forties.

Noon found us at 40S57, 115W08, giving us a n-n distance of only 61 miles. The wind had slackened and we were barely managing to sail.

I woke up at 5 PM after a very long nap and found that the wind had backed a few degrees and strengthened 2 or 3 knots. I eased the boat another 20 degrees and soon we were moving at 2.4 knots to the SE. It's amazing how a nap can improve things.

While lighting the oven for my last bread bake I got a good look at my face in the reflection of the oven door, and it was not pretty. My beard was little more than a big white ball with little tufts of black up near the cheeks. Hair was curling into my lips, long black hairs were coming out of my nose, tufts of black hair poking out of my ears, and the black and white eyebrows were invading my eyes. It looked awful, like ... well ... a barbarian. Fortunately over the years I had put together a modest hair care toolkit and I got to work. It took 5 new AA batteries, two electric cutters with different sized heads, the electric trimmer with the round head, and a pair of good stainless steel trimming scissors, but I got the job done by going over and over the terrain and was impressed with the results. I know now that I'll be able to make landfall looking reasonably presentable. I'm not sure how I'll trim my top hair. I've got a set of 110V cutters and if they can be supported by the inverter maybe I can give myself a US Marine like close cut. I went to the cockpit and shook out all of the hairs from the towel and my clothing then celebrated with a cup of tea and a muesli bar. I've been very restrained with the muesli bars, averaging only one per day.

At 8 PM I had to give up. You cannot sail a boat of this size in these lumpy waters with a 5 knot breeze. Frustrating. I left the trysail and staysail up sheeted hard hoping that some wind would come up during the night.

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Day 54 - Below 40S and Storm Trysail Up

I ran the engine for another 40 minutes just before dark to make sure that I had plenty of battery power for a radio session with Jim in Fremantle. Naturally I steered south. At the end of the run I left the boat pointing south and lashed the wheel to starboard. At 2 AM the boat was pointed SE and had managed to move another 2.5 miles to the south against the southerly swell. The weather fax now showed that broad bimodal high as conventional high centred only 2.5 degrees north of my position. Any boat sailing between 30S and 40S would be having wind problems. Sailing the waters between the SE trade winds and the Roaring Forties had not been the slam dunk wind wise that I had expected.

The 4 AM radio session with Jim was our best yet, but nevertheless difficult due to the weak signals. Sooner or later we'll find that sweet spot of the right frequency and atmospherics.

At 6.30 AM I returned to bed and woke at 9 AM to find that the sky was clear with a brilliant sun through only a thin cloud cover, and there was a hint of wind. It was from the NW at about 7 knots and soon I had the jib partially rolled out doing 1-1.5 knots on course 210. It wasn't much but we were moving. The grib file predicted a slight backing and strengthening of the wind during the day so there was hope of better progress. We had drifted to 39S54 so I was confident that we'd limp across the lat 40S milestone sometime during the day.

I did some winch maintenance work. For a day or two I had noticed that the port sheet (forward) winch had a different movement when cranking in the low gear direction. This morning I had a look and the stainless steel cap was loose. I knew better than to just tighten it. I did that with the same winch on the way to Hawaii and when it came time to service the winch the cap would not come off. Fortunately I was in touch with a young welder named Lenny and he built a tool out of stainless steel which was in effect two long handles with the center fitting into the two slots of the cap. After several modifications we got the tool right and we managed to loosen the cap with Lenny standing on the middle of the tool to keep it from jumping out of the slots of the cap and me hitting one handle of the tool with a heavy hammer while putting force on the other. Later the agent in Australia explained that for some reason the company had used dissimilar metals, where the stainless steel cap was screwing into a part made of aluminium, and the dissimilar metals had caused galling. He told me that we were lucky to get the cap off. He shipped me a new part made out of brass but nevertheless I removed the cap and lubricated the threads with lanolin grease before tightening it. I did the same treatment on the three other cockpit winches which still have the aluminium components.

But tightening the cap did not remove the problem from the port sheet winch. With the greatest of reluctance I removed the drum and had a good look at what bearings and gears I could see. Nothing seemed out of order. There was one set of clutches and some bearings that I could not see further down but I was not game to take the winch completely apart without better preparation. I lubricated the gears and bearings that I could see using a small artist's brush then put the winch back together again, but the problem persisted. I would have to prepare an "operating theater" with my spares at hand (which I must dig out of storage), barriers draped over the rail to prevent loss of items overboard, and all of my tools, all on a calm day. In the meantime I hoped that the winch would hold together.

At noon we were at 39S57, 115W23 which gave us a n-n distance of only 19 miles. We were doing 1.5 knots on course 220, but I expected the wind to back.

After the noon report I put up the storm trysail. It was a good time to do it with the gentle wind, clear weather, and relatively calm sea. Fortunately the pre work had been done. The sail came out of the bag with two beautiful sheets and a tack line already attached - all custom fitted for the job. In La Paz John the rigger had done his work well. He had perfectly placed the halyard block up on the mast and the two large cleats that he had fitted at the working level were perfect for cleating off the halyard and tack line. Best of all was the success that he had had in aligning the two sections of the slide track. I was able to hoist up the sail with no snags at that join whatsoever. (Well done, John, and many thanks.) The tricky part was routing the sheets. I managed to do that without winding up with a tangle during the hoist but I had to make a subtle adjustment after the sail was up. The sheet has to pass in the gap of about 2 inches between the wind steering control lines. With the trysail up I had a total of 17 lines going to the cockpit: 2 jib sheets, 2 staysail sheets, 2 trysail sheets, 1 mainsail sheet, 1 jib halyard, 1 staysail halyard, 1 mainsail halyard, 1 roller furler line, 2 running backstays, 4 reefing lines. (Is there any wonder why I didn't want the Zodiac in the cockpit?) At the mast were the trysail halyard and 2 spinnaker halyards.

The trysail was built for this boat in 2008 and had never been used. It is a beautiful bright orange, heavy, well constructed sail and I look forward to good service from it for the rest of my voyage to Australia. The area of of the sail is approximately 11.5 sq meters, or 124 sq ft. Putting it up gave us a boost in speed which was difficult to quantify because after putting it up I fell off the wind some more putting the boat on a broad reach, giving us a heading of 195T at 2.1 knots. That's very modest but at least I don't have a banging boom.

Even though I expect to get better at managing the trysail I think that it will be best that I put the sail up during calm weather in anticipation of strong winds. Putting up that sail working alone in heavy winds would present problems, namely having the sail flogging like mad while I hoist it and before I can make it back to the cockpit to bring on the sheet. And I don't like the idea of running back and forth along the side deck in heavy weather with my mind focused more on getting the sail up than making sure that I don't fall overboard.

And then there is the issue of collecting rainwater. The best setup for that is the mainsail up with one reef, so somewhere down the track I'll have to make tricky calculations about whether there is prospect for good rains ahead in winds that are not too strong for the mainsail. If everything looks good then I'll have to put up the mainsail ahead of time to collect the rain. This need not happen often. One good downpour before the Horn and another around the Falklands would set me up beautifully.

While having lunch at the nav station I watched on the chart plotter Pachuca crossing the line of lat 40S at 20:09:32 GMT/UTC. Crossing the 10 degrees of latitude from 30S had taken 11 days, bearing in mind that we had done quite a bit of easting.

At 5 PM I visited the foredeck for a look around before settling in for the night and what a fortunate visit it was. While looking at the webbing that needs re stitching on the mainsail slide I noticed that a screw had partially backed out of one of the fittings that attaches a batten and hence sail to a slide. The mainsail has 5 battens. The forward end of each batten is sandwiched in between two plastic like pieces that are thru bolted with six bolts and nuts. On the lower batten one bolt was half backed out and two others were missing. On the next batten up one bolt was missing and two were completely loose. This was serious business because if one of these fittings fails the batten must be removed and the associated slide attachment to the mast is lost. I got a screw driver and found that every thru bolt on every batten needed a lot of tightening. I then went into the cabin with the loose bolt and went through my plastic boxes of nuts and bolts. A week earlier I had found one of the screws on deck and because it did not resemble anything to do with rigging I passed it off as probably something that one of the workmen on Pachuca had dropped. However, I made a mental note and put the bolt where I could find it, and indeed it was one of the batten bolts. I got very lucky and found other equivalent bolts and nuts that would fit into the recesses of the fittings. In the end every bolt was in place and very tight and all was well. That was a close one and could have ended badly. I'm learning everything the hard way but call it sailor's superstition, I'm convinced that I'm getting help. My task is to keep an open mind and listen.

At 6.30 PM we were still ambling along at 2.5 knots on course 200T with just the headsail and trysail. The wind had remained strong enough for sailing all day and I could not complain. We were at 40S12, creeping steadily into the Roaring Forties.

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Day 53 - Becalmed close to 40S

At 2 AM I woke up to find the boat still sailing south on a good westerly breeze. The 2.30 AM MSLP weather fax explained where the wind was coming from. During the previous day I had seen the barometer rise 6 hPa which had puzzled me because we were being affected by the isobars of a low 250 miles to the south. I should have also been looking to the north. The two highs, one far to the ENE and the other far to the W were now being presented as one long bimodal high with isobars stretching across my north. This I could recognize and saw that I was just far enough south to reap the benefit of the west winds south of the high working with the west winds of the low to the south. Had I been another 2 or 3 degrees to the north I would have been enjoying wonderful weather with little wind.

When I stuck my head out for a look around I was pleased to see the plastic tarp patch still in position inside of the starboard side of the spray dodger, keeping out the wind coming from that quarter.

Before returning to bed I checked the battery bank because I had not run the engine the previous day, expecting to use it after a becalming that never came. The bank was at 12.0V so I shut down the computer, leaving only the chart plotter (that I needed because of AIS) and masthead light on. The boat was still using about 2.3 amps but I could see the wind charger weaving in and out with its modest contribution, taking the net loss to probably less than one amp.

At 8.30 AM we were still moving well, above 4 knots on a course of 165T. The battery bank was reading 12.1V so I knew that I could take the time to coordinate the engine run with another round of break making.

At noon our position was 39S40, 115W35, giving us a n-n distance of 87 miles. It appeared that we would cross 40S in the late afternoon, 2 or even 3 days before I had expected, given the earlier grim grib file reports.

At 2.30 PM I dropped the mainsail and rolled in the headsail. It was a shame because I was less than 13 minutes (miles) from latitude 40S. The true wind was less than 6 knots. According to the previous night's grib file I could not expect relief for 24 hours, and even then it would be a light wind. I was looking forward to this evening's grib file which might present a different picture. With just the staysail up and flogging left and right we were still making 1.2-1.5 knots to the ESE. Maybe there was a current.

After tidying things up it was time for a cup of tea and a muesli bar. The bread came out of the oven nice and crusty brown on top, and by the way the mung bean sprouts were great with my simple lunch of cheese and three slices of turkey lunch meat.

At 5 PM I went topside with the intention of putting up the storm trysail thinking that being loose footed (i.e. no boom) it would work better in light airs. Unfortunately I found that the wind was below 3 knots, the boat had lost steerage and pointing north, and the staysail was backwinded. I dropped the staysail to lay purely ahull and would put up the trysail whenever a 7 or 8 knot breeze came up. For this night it would be a leisurely rice and sardine meal followed by the usual desert of yogurt and raisins, then a quiet movie evening where I would finish "Max Payne" and probably watch a second movie. (Last night I watched "Pans Labyrinth" and found it terrific.)

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