Sailing into the Teeth of a Hurricane
05 November 2014 | Somewhere between Turtle and Santa Maria
Fred
Vance is predicted to turn and go up between Cabo and Mazatlan and peter out in a few days so the decision was made for the rest of the HaHa fleet to start today, Monday 11-03 at 10:30. So we scurry to get ready and weigh anchor and head for the starting line. Brent and I went forward to set the spinnaker and off we go.
Good Nly winds at about 12 knots which built to the high teens and we enjoyed some fun sailing doing 8-10 knots and being up in the front of the fleet. We jibed out so we wouldn't get stuck in a bay with no wind and stayed on that jibe for about an hour. On the jibe back it looked like we lost some boats as they must have gotten a wind shift inside, however a few hours later we got a good shift and we were right back up where we wanted to be. The winds were building to the Low to mid 20's with some gusts to the higher 20's so we decided to take the spinnaker down before dark. So Brent and I go forward and Liz on the halyard and Greg driving and Eileen on the sheet we make another flawless drop. With the jib out we are maintaining good speeds of 8-10 knots.
During the night the wind continues to build out of the North northeast touching 30 knots and we are surfing at 12 with a few bursts to 13. My high hand steering is 14.5, and yes, right on course. It's a wild and noisy night and Greg and I relieve each other every 3 hours with the others coming up on there normal watches. We make it through the night with no problems but others were not as fortunate. We heard of torn sails, broken boom, and Moonshadow told use that they broke a pipe and took on 40 gallons of water. It was discovered when a crewman got out of his bunk and stepped in the wet carpet. They slowed the boat down and got the thru hull turned off and pumped her dry and took off. She was 3 miles ahead of us and we were catching her but that was when she slowed. She is 10 feet longer than Scout so faster.
We just crossed the finish line at 2:17pm on Tuesday with a time for the leg of 27 hours 43 minutes. Fast passage for this leg. We start the final leg to Cabo on Thursday so we get a few days rest. Don't know if the big fish fry and beach party with rock and roll band will happen as we are a few days off schedule. Oh well once anchored we can jump into the 80 degree water and get clean!