SailBlog

I had a good night...and felt quite rested this morning despite the hard work of the day before..it was a pleasant surprise. And I woke with a sense of peace about the day and all the projects I will so seemingly endlessly go on and on and on about...but when I woke up, I put them all away promising myeslf a day off. It was blowing fairly hard and the deck would be hard to work on, but the next stage of the boom was going to happen below. it would have to wait until I am ready...and i was not ready at 0700, or 0800.or even 0900. I enjoyed the sea for breakfast and let the day unfold...

I was quite impressed at how well the mainsail managed through the night wthout the boom. It seems to be so flexible and forgiving. I am actually going to miss the ease of using it when i get the boom all set to go. One thing about the weight of the boom is the energy with which it can jibe accidentally and such. Without the boom, an accidental jib is totally flowing, not a banging of the boom. and then, as the sail completely passes over, because it isn't prevented, it is easy to swing it back. With the jib on the pole, both sails are on the same side and the boat just gets sailing to the sails...plenty of motion to maintain steering...I just steer us back on course and with a grab of the main sheet lines, I can gently bring the mainsail back over. It is all quite remarkably less traumatic.

Having the dynamics of the stiff and weighted boom involved in the jibe is a definite challenge running downwind. As when it jibes...as we all know, it is a huge violent crashing, especially if it isn't prevented...and if it is prevented..the boom is stuck halfway across, heeling the boat dramatically... I have to get the preventer to release with all the tension of the boom backwinded on it... all very scary, labor intensive, and dramatic.

So... it has been interesting. So far, I am finding that the mainsail tends to be more flexible as it's shape tends to allow for spilling of air as it gets overpowered while still offering enough foil to gain a good amount of speed from the edges that are at the right foil angles. So I don't get that sudden feeling of being overpowered, needing to reef. I tend to notice that the wind steering is having trrouble maintaining a course first. I reef the jib when it seems too much sail and we have managed 20-25kts of wind with the full main flying, perfectly balanced. I am finding that I can actually sail closer to dead downwind then with the boom as the negative outcomes of backwinding the main are less, and the sail seems to have a shape that is less likely to back.

As I said, I am not so sure I will be anxious to go back to reefing the main and the 'terror' I feel when I am sailing downwind, that the main is going to backwind, especially now that the boom is going to be so much heavier...It may be less likely to jibe with the added weight on the leech; or the other way around...the leech may pull down and make an edge more likely to catch the wind. It would be wild if, after all the effort to splint the boom, that I end up deciding it is easier, and better to leave the boom off.

We will see. At least for now, having the mainsail working is allowing me to sail well enough to take some of the pressure off as I am taking the time necessary to do a good fix of the boom.

I re-calculated my progress as I was logging my position this morning. I am definitely delayed... I will be at 150*W in a day or so... Cape Horn is at 67* W. 83*W to go to get there. And at 40*S, 2 degrees a day is all I do... At 45*, I can do 2-2.5* day and at 49*S I can average 2.5-3* a day. So... i am at most 42 days out, baring any other complete loss of days, as I will get farther south as I go. I am sailing at 120*T to get to nearer 45*S for now. That puts me there the 27th of February. If I get a good run a couple of weeks..it may shorten it up.

So...that is manageable. I have basically lost a full week to 10 days of time with all the storms and days lost going due north and south. Becalm days are expected. I would say, we are right on schedule for a May 10th arrival in RI...but it is too early to tell. My route through the S. Atlantic is going to be different than it was last time, wanting to cross my outbound track near the equator synching the Nonstop solo circumnavigation 'status'... then if something happens enroute to RI in the dasterly N. Atlantic in the spring, I will still have completed the nonstop circ. But that may add time...it may not, depending on how the whole sail north goes. It should be out of my way to go east to 22*W... I should be able to roung Brazil closer to 30*W or so. We will see. Otherwise, I don't cross my outbound track until I get into the channel approaching Newport, RI. When I left, I went due east pretty much. On the return, I may be coming from the SE and cross my track near the shoals off Martha's Vineyard.

Dreaming of the finish... I am keeping my days counting down to the original arrival date as it is what feels better to my psyche. It will be easier to add the days at the end of the voyage when I am so close, than it is to add them now. So I only have 3 1/2 months to go to May 1. That's my story, and I'm stickin to it!!!

It has been a pleasant day...able to leave the hatches open to a warm fresh breeze. There are only two of the darker colored 'Prion-like' birds flitting around. I should get my fishing pole set up again as we are moving fast enough to consider getting a fish..but I am a bit leary having lost the last rig, to what I believe was, a 'too big ' fish. The way it took the lure and was able to spin off even under the tension of my bungy cord, would suggest it was a large fish. I only have so many fishing rigs. But I am hungry for a real feast.

I am leaving the Aurora unplugged a bit more as I am going to be low on power...Even though t is blowing 20kts, I can't get it to run downwind. Later, the wind is suppose to go more to the south and once I am sailing on the beam, it may run...though the winds are also suppose to lighten up.

I have to try one more time to fix the solar regulator. The broken connection is not really accessible. And unfortunately, just sticking the wire into the vacinity of the old solder (sp?) is not holding. So the next thing to try is to actually solder a wire to the old solder...it wll be totally hit or miss. I would heat the wire and run the solder down it, hoping it will melt the old solder and connect. Then I can butt connect the panel power wire back a ways to allow enough wire if I need to disconnect it and create a junction there. But to use the solder iron, will totally flat the batteries. ( Mysteriously.....the flashing light went on..it is working... Well, we will see how it goes...)

So I have to try it when the wind gen is buzzing along and I know I can renew the power. That may happen when the winds shift to south, but I am not sure there will be enough wind for long enough. So... I am going to be reserving power for now, just plugging in the Aurora for periods of time. I need to look and see how often it puts out a position . It needs to be more often so that during a short period of it being on, it actually creates position reports.

The wind generator... Again, Bob, I need the boat to be totally flat to do that and I am hoping to be sailing hard for while. But I have been considering how I can use the preventer tackle and a block behind the wind gen pole to get some leverage to stablize the pole while help raising it once the Ampair is on top. I am pretty sure that we didn't change the pole in any way that it doesn't fit when we were fitting the KISS. It is not that hard to line up the wind gen with the attatchment bolt....but I may have to take the pole all the way down, verses laying the pole on the dodger to put the generator on the pole . I can assemble the blades and tail with it up in the air.

Eventually, my mind did return to the chores at hand and i made a conservative goal...to move the box from the cabin so that i could bring the boom down to measure the wood pieces to cut. I spent the afternoon, working out the measures and drawings for the boom repair...there really isn't enough wood to do what I want to do but I will do what I can. I will be able to make the rectangular splint but the plywood will only cover 2/3 of the length of the oak. At first, I took the measurements on the boom out on the rail, and used the cut ends to measure...I did all the drawings I posted..but then I realized that the ends where I cut were still somewhat damaged and not the real shape of the boom, so I got the shorter boom end and brought it below...Sure enough, the real shape was very different. So glad I did that before I cut the wood.

Tomorrow I will cut the boards and start to fit them around the boom, drill holes and get it all screwed together. I have to pull the long bolts out of my jib track that I will need so I will have them to through bolt all the wood together around the boom. I went through my bins of screws..I will have just enough to fashion the corners of the rectangle. then I will fit it all around the boom end here and make sure it all fits.

From there, I will be looking for the right day to actually put it all together. I decided that i need to be able to hang the boom, using the compression of the topping lift and the lines inside to hold it together, while I prevent it from moving...I will put a piece of wood in the upper foot track and a piece in the lower track...to aligh it all, Then epoxy the sleeve in place, screw the box together around it all with Thixo epoxy at the joints and any where else I can get it, then drill through the whole rectangle and boom with the long bolts to finish it up. I have the two steel bars to use as backing plates and potentially other materials. I may end up screwing another piece of teak across the break if it still needs more reinforcement.

We will all be glad when this project is done... I have masticated the details of this process to 'puree', I think is the terms I used before.

As the late afternoon wore on, the whole sky changed. The expected shift to SW / S winds is arriving, bgringing with it a bit of drizzly rain and a steep cooling of temperature... I am coming to really dislike the SW winds... as they have not produced any real rain, just drizzle, maybe a few minutes of droplets, and they always drop the temperature a full 10 degrees. It was such a nice day today. The SW winds will persist for a few days now.

So, I as I am typing away, I am waiting for a bit of potential rain to go over, and then I will go out and haul the mainsail back up...take the jib off the whisker pole and set it to Lee. And get ready to say goodnight to another day on Inspired Sanity. but still a bit of work to do..

The mainsail has now engraciated herself as a wonderful rain catcher..If it would rain, the water would pour off the sail into a bucket in the cockpit.. how cool is that. But again, these clouds just aren't producing real rain. I will give it up trying soon and get on with the sail plan for the night.

I had to move my box off the salon floor in order to work on the boom, so I am without a seat for this SW wind, starboard tack... I have taken to sitting on the floor for now. I need to get the boom done so I can have the cabin back as a living space, not a workshop. But it is all good. It will give me great satisfaction to see the boom fly again with a good repair...I am still crossing my fingers it is all tight and secure when I finish.

I am going to say good night. Hopefully, it will be a restful night. The winds should be fairly steady 10-15kts. That makes for good sailing...not necessarily fast but fast enough and no too rough though there is a big swell from a storm to the east of me and south...that may roll my boat a bit.

Keepin On Sailin On Caring... today was a peaceful day...it just started out that way. I didn't get started on projects until after i had spent a bit of time resting, outside communing, enjoying my breakfast and letting go of it all... Once I had let it all go, it seemed the right thing to do came to do and it wasn't hard. The day came together.

Fairest of Winds and the Love of the Ocean Only Gratitude Donna

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