SailBlog

I had a rough night...I actually ended up catching the top of a frontal low system or maybe it is a trough..I am confused by the two...anyway...a circular spinning area of winds going clockwise... So it was miserably squally all night. Normally, with fronts...I have been just setting less sail and losing speed in between the gusts, but last night it was blowing 20 and gusting higher...I really wanted to keep moving east so I was up all night changing sails, and being pressed hard into my bed.

I even managed to back both the jib and main even though we were sailing with the wind just behind the beam, not downwind at all... I must have gone over a wave in just a way that it really kicked us to port and then, seeing as the steering has a bit of weather helm to hedge off the wind, it probably couldn't respond as quickly as it needed...but that was weird..again, without the boom, it was a 'soft' jibe ... essentially into a hove-to position. It took me a few minutes to get organized, reef in the jib, jibe the jib over so we could get sailing again, getting some speed of the water by the rudder for steerage and then I jibed the whole rig back...

After that I put the main away for a while as there was plenty of wind to run just the Genny. Then the winds died down again, and it seemed the winds were going to diminish so that I put it back up.... just to have another big squall go through a little bit ago. It was a big squall that I actually was on deck to see approaching so I had to drop the main again...and now I am too tired to worry about speed. We are gently mosying along more downwind at ENE. But this is what we would have done all night if I hadn't really pressed to sail hard. So I have to get back up there and get us going again...And all the pressing did pay off. We made good progress yesterday which is important to offset the calms and low wind days...which we have quite a few ahead in the next few days.

There is a cost to fast sailing. Especially on the starboard tack. And as I am trying to make ESE course to head for the Cape, it keeps us in that weird area between apparent wind and downwind sailing. So with the swell, it swoops us into the wind, the steering has to fend us off to just behind the beam and we keep doing that...swinging in, and fending off. Hard point of sail to live at and with the gusts it was horrible. The forces down below are huge... Well, we all remember the three weeks I spent close hauled trying to make progress southeast in the South ATlantic..what a grueling time. At this point, I am a bit worn down...I am not sure I could take it for that long. But I guess I would...there aren't many choices out here.

So...today, it looks like another sailing day...no work on the boom. The solar panel light is blinking...wind gen working. I actually turned on the stereo in the middle of the night and plugged in my Christmas lights just to brighten my Morale!!! Plus, the wind gen was pinning the voltmeter and I thought it might be good to be using power. I couldn't get up on the stern pulpit at that point, to stop it. It is holding now between 14-15v. but with gusts it gets too high.

It is going to be a partly cloudy, part sunny day. ... and actually, the winds are to die down over the day, leaving this huge swell for me to manage until it settles down...so definitely, not a work on the boat day. I haven't touched an instrument or worked on the 'non blog' parts of my book...knitted... anything but sail and fabricate the boom fix... so. We will see what kind of day it becomes. It has the NE springtime coolness to the air,. Or maybe a NE summer morning in the mountains would be more like it. It did rain for moments in the squalls but not anything I could catch.

A large great Albatross swooped nearly into the cockpit this morning...and just peered below...curiosity is an amazing thing. ...I was a bit worried about the wind generator spinning, but the Albatross seemed to steer clear of it.

The winds did settle down from the intensity of the night and was less squally through the day, but the winds stayed up to 15-20kts...and as the sun is setting, the winds seem to be diminishing again. The swell is still formidable, but at a close reach, we are cliimbing them quite well...it isn't the bigger seas that slow us...it is the short choppier seas that catch the hull shape the wrong way. I just let up a bit more of the mainsail hoping that the winds will stay up and steady through the night...The forecast is for them to settle right down. Tomorrow the winds should pick up again, later in the morning, from the west. It will be good to get the wind off the nose and make a little southing.

There is something going on with the current or the magnetic varation. Today, I sailed consistently with a 90* heading on the compass, which with a 23.8* E variation should be 113.8*T... ESE. Yet all day, we only made 3nm of southing. I have been noticing this at other times... despite my attempts to be steering a ESE course, the numbers at the end of the day show a very minimal southing. Yesterday I did better with the SW winds, but I really steered nearly a 135*mag course and should have make more southing than easting...but I didn't. So either the forces of the SW swell is so dramatic as to cause a huge drift factor... or there is a current affecting my course. I got out Jimmy Cornell's Atlas and Piiot charts and sure enough there is a NE setting current in this area of about a 1/2 kt. So that may be part of it. It is hard enough to get a ESE course with the SE winds without losing ground to an adverse current. The South Ocean current is much farther south, nearer to 50*S...though as I approach 45*S it should be better.

it is still rough out, but the real situation maker is that the wind is from the SSE and going to be out of the SE through the night...and diminishing to calm...so it is going to be a total loss of movement time unless the forecast is slightly off in its positioning...I can hope so... and I really need to get south. I made nearly a whole degree south yesterday...but today, I have barely kept from going north again.

But needing to close haul did add to my innovative motivation today..what is the expression ".........is the mother of invention"... It is just slipping my sieve of a mind. Anyway... I was moitivated to be able to get a better sail shape for close reaching. So I realized that I could set up my preventer which has a cam cleat, just like the mainsheet lines. I was able to use the fitting for my backstay as the anchor and then attached it to the second clew to add extra tension....works like a charm... amazing. So we are sailing nearly as close to the wind as we can. Not comfortable, but it is what it is..the wind is suppose to dwindle tonight...I can rest then.

This afternoon, I finally gave up on trying to sit on the floor or keep moving around and I went back to bed to take a nap...my eyes are tired. I prayed for all my grands and family... I prayed for Bob who is starting another delivery with a new boat and new owners...so he will have a full 4-5 days of instructing and sorthing the beautiful new yacht. But the weather is not going to cooperate, again... As you are all probably aware of the horrendous Nor'easter setting up to clobber the whole coast on Friday. So the trip will have to cater to the winds and may not be as pleasant as hoped, but it will be exciting.

I caught up in my log and contemplated distances using the Starpilot program to get more accurate measures of distances... I am 3200nm from Cape Horn..that could be 32 days..though my other calculations say closer to 5 weeks...more like the 25-26th. In three weeks...the chatter will all be about the approach weather... to the Horn. I am feeling quite relieved to have Bob McDavitt's experience with the South Ocean weather helping me to orchestrate that approach to minimize the challenges as it is enough challenge just to forge the cold and wet, but as we all know, the Horn is notorious for huge sea states and storms.

Not unlike south of New Zealand, there is a large bank to the south of the Cape it self creating a similar effect on the huge ocean swells as they go from rolling along deep water to suddenly lifting with the sea bottom into steeper and taller seas. So it is important for me to avoid approaching the bank in any kind of a storm state. I may need to go farther south of Cape Horn...like I did the West Cape of NZ in the South Ocean Passage, staying in deeper water where the swells can spread out into longer periods, less dangerous... more like the 'gentle giants' I encountered in that last big storm. It all is about timing. And once again, It takes a few days to actually cross the end of S. America and Teirra del Fuego, so I need a bit of a weather window.

Tonight, I want to be sure to try to get a look at the stars as there was a phenomena last night that I missed...their was a remarkable aligning of five planets, a very rare occurance. Last night it was squally and cloudy so I didn't hang out on deck...and there were not too many stars...but I will see if I can see them tonight, even though they may not be as aligned as they were, I should be able to see them. I can look them all up on the Starpilot program...it has such an awesome star finding function, showing where the key stars are for taking sights as well as the planets.

I just went above and was able to haul a bit more of the main up... the winds are diminishing now so it will be important to keep adding sail until it is all up. I may have a good work day on deck tomorrow...a lot depends on these swells. But hopefully, the wind will stay up and the calming will just be a short period between wind patterns. I am exhausted and hoping to get some kind of sleep between watches tonight.

I was thinking on the word 'awakening'... Very dear friend Tim Murphy did a reading of a poem of this name and it rings in my ears still. This journey has been truly a magnificent awakening in so many senses of the word... When I think of an awakening, I think of an arousal from a slumber, a time of putting away of tasks, cares, burdens, even the visions and passions to allow for a restoration...but then there is that changing over of the menses of the mind when it goes from being unaware to become full of perception and a newness of sensual attenuation. Our sense come alive.

But in that time of awakening, there is the temptation of distraction to lure us away from that which we were awakened to become; an intimate participant in this present experience of Life. And as much as I feel the richness of all that I have come to engage with of the ocean energy of life, I am oh so very aware of the distractions still that lure me from that intimate engagement, not just with the tasks of sailing this mighty ship, but of pure communion... But more and more each day I find myself lending focus to the sea herself, the ocean and it is so breath taking to do hear in the calms of the winds, or the raging of the storms, the same voice...essence of peace and belonging that draws me to return to sea again and again.

Keepin On Sailin On Caring... I have felt not only an awakening from a not only a deep slumber, but from an induced slumber by the cosmic existence that has become or life here ... so detatched from the energy of nature and intimacy with Life itself. I am blessed to still have time to bask here in all that the sea has for me. Bob has come to end his emails reminding me to take it all in for the time is fast approaching that I will return. This is my time...

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

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