T-F Day 10
01 September 2020 | South Pacific on Passage Day 10
Susan
T - Fiji Day 10
It was a busy evening. Just after Captain's half hour the AIS alarm startled both of us with a
message that we were on a collision course with a Chinese Fishing Vessel. Life, human contact after
10 days of seeing no one. Unfortunately, the vessel was not in the mood to communicate or answer
the VHF radio so we had to take matters into our own hands and avoid hitting them. That's not hard
to do when you've got hundreds of miles of empty ocean around. We gave up trying to get a
response from them, and anyway, would we have been able to understand them if they had replied
to our hail. We diverted course 20 degrees to starboard and watched their lights pass across our
bow about 2 miles away. Wow, the excitement for the evening, but there was more to come.
The wind continued to be agreeable and the waves slowly sank below the uncomfortable 2 meter
level. We pulled in the warp and immediately increased speed by a knot and a half.. Now the
trimming struggle began to capture as much wind in the sails as possible. When sailing with the
dogsled team, the mainsail's only purpose is to dampen the rocking and we were about to find out
how important that purpose is. Grinding out more headsail increased our speed but exacerbated
the rocking. We couldn't sheet the main far out because it would block the wind from getting to the
headsails. We tried centering the main. Now the sail was flopping hard from side to side putting
tremendous pressure on the cars on the luff track (the points that connect the sail to the mast) and
on the goose neck ( where the boom connects to the mast). Don't you love all this jargon? So, we
decided to drop the main. By this time it was dark and bedtime for Greg who was off watch. Within
half an hour, he was back up. It was impossible to sleep. This rocking was jerky, twisty and
bouncy, not like the rhythemic roll when the main is up. It was also blowing 20 knots. Under a hazy
moon, we had to raise the main, again.
Steering in the dark is not easy and I had to turn the boat all the way around to head to wind. There
are no points of reference except for the wind indicator dial that has a delayed response and a guess
as to which side of the wildly flapping sail is filling. You can't see because the sail is backlit by the
foredeck light. The waves are trying to push the bow down but the wind is trying to round the boat
up. To make progress you have to throttle up the engine to make way through the water but that
increases the wind speed and throws spray and intensifies the flapping. Meanwhile, Greg is at the
mast wrestling with the heavy Dacron that rips away from him when it fills with wind. Fortunately,
we had the entire empty ocean to figure it out. Finally, we had the sails balanced and Rapture was
sweeping along. Greg could get some sleep.
It looks like we'll have another day of sailing before the wind dies. On day 10 we sailed 136 nautical
miles at the average speed of 5.5 knots. We had another premade chicken curry for dinner. It was
not as good as the first.