Dousing, Daily Work and Triple Ace
13 February 2011 | Close Reaching South
Jeff
First, the stats - noon to noon run 109. Overnight was quite event filled with a twenty knot squall coming thru. Quite a contrast to earlier in the day when we had to power to make progress.
In the title to yesterday's entry I mentioned a dousing of Jeff but neglected to put anything in the blog about it. The night before last I was sitting in the companionway in windy conditions at about 7:30 pm when we took blue water over the port side amidships. The wave landed on top of the cabin house in front of the dodger. Most of the front of the dodger is closed except for a one and a half inch by six inch gap where the control lines pass thru. The water came thru that hole and hit me in the chest, deflecting of me and went right down inside the cabin. Fortunately in the Valiant 40 there is only storage lockers in that area. But everything will require a cleaning when we reach port. Of course my clothing was soaked so I had to wash down with fresh water and put on new clothes. Basically you could say the whole experience was memorable.
before we left North Palm Beach, my friend Nelson asked me what we do all day. So, since today was quite representative let me describe what I have done. Starting last evening we had a squall come thru at about 7:30 that lasted for about 45 minutes but seemed like it was never going to end. During the squall the wind was blowing over 20 knots with six to eight foot swells. We are still beating into it so it was quite rough going. In the squall the wind shifted forcing us west. After reefing the jib to handle the wind increase I had to point the boat to try to stall its progress because I didn't want to lose the easting that we had worked so hard to gain. If we had to go in the wrong direction it might as well be slow. After the squall passed the wind came out of the south, the direction we want to go, forcing me to either go further west or tack and go north east. I chose to tack to the ENE to gain back the easting that e had lost during the squall. After a frustrating hour of not going where I wanted to go, the wind shifted again back to the ESE. At which time I tacked again to get back on course. Then I went off watch until midnight. Overnight could be characterized as tweaking of sail trim trying to keep the boat moving as well as possible in the 10 to 12 knot winds. Until about 3:00 am when we got another burst from a squall to about 20 knots again so I had to reef the jib again to ride that out. After which the squall sucked all the wind out and we drifted ghosting along at three knots but at least it was in the right direction. The light winds required that I un-reef the jib again to keep the boat moving. At about 7:30 am I went off watch to get a little sleep. After breakfast at about 9:30 am I went back on deck to let Pam get some rest. I looked at the sail trim and our speed and saw several things that I could do to make the boat go faster. But was so tired that I was more inclined to just sit there and enjoy the placid moment. But them I remembered what a racing sailor friend told me, "a lazy sailor is a slow sailor." So i got up off my butt and made sail trim changes that took us from 3.5 knots to 6.2 knots. The rest of that watch from 9:30 am to about 2:00 pm was spent making trim changes, reefing once when a squall came thru and then un-reefing after it passed employing the same stalling tactic as before because the wind did the same thing as before, Now we are close reaching in 12.7 knots of wind with a speed over the ground of 6.6 knots right on course for our next waypoint. It doesn't get any better than this for we sailors. Oh yah, some where during all that activity I managed to transfer four gallons of diesel fuel from a storage tank to the day tank that feeds the engine. Of course all this activity was over and above typical navigation calculations and fuel consumption calculations that had to be done. Well now I am pooped.
In the world of aerial combat a pilot earns the designation of Ace after his fifth enemy kill. Using that as a yard stick Foggy Mountain is now a triple ace after 15 confirmed flying fish kills. And the beat goes on.