Day 23, Thursday 12th July. 47-32N, 167-39W. Daily Run: 146 NM. Weather: 20+ Knots WSW, Cold/Rain/Fog. 1764 NM to go
At last we reached some of the gale laden low pressure systems to our north, or rather they came to meet us. Not quite a gale, but pretty hairy conditions. I was very pleased. I saw the NOAA charts had us down for a gale, but that was because the forecaster had put the G of the Gale right on top of us, I think he/she was out by a few hundred miles. However I checked on the more detailed predict wind charts (GRIBS we download) and could see the low fast approaching us, with another right on its heels. The nice thing is this high pressure we are sitting to the north of, the pacific high, causes the lows to hang a left around about here, and head off up to the north pole to feature in extreme fishing programs. So I’m hoping this is the end of them now and we can enjoy more settled, if not slower winds ahead. I expect some of the lows to come back and great us in the last few days of the passage.
The reality of the weather is that I had to ‘batten down the hatches’ again, I did a check of everything on deck to make sure it would stay there, then changed the sail setup. I had just finished patching the mainsail, and decided I would put it back up, just keep it off the shrouds as much as possible. Later on it can come down and we will run with the headsails only. The genoa was furled, and out came the staysail, the staysail is quite a small sail, and very tough, it works very well in strong winds, one to drive the boat forward, but as importantly, to balance the mainsail around the centre of the boat. While I was doing all of this the wind was steadily building from the annoying 7 knots of the last few days to a goo 10-15 knots. In no time at all it was dark and the seas were building and we were belting along at 7-8 knots. by 2AM this morning the boat was touching 10 knots at times in 20-25 knots of wind on the beam. If you look at our course, it’s all over the show again, partly because the wind shifted and I didn’t notice from my bunk, but also because the wind vane steering couldn’t cope again. Back on deck, I realised just how big the waves were, they kept pushing us off course, and although the steering was trying to correct it, it was too slow and another wave would arrive to keep us off course. My first attempt at course correction didn’t last more than 10 minutes before we were off course, so I thought about reducing the mainsail, but ended up taking in the staysail, this was counterintuitive, but did the job, the boat became more balanced and we kept our speed up at around 7-9 knots. We have massive waves hitting us now, but nothing the boat doesn’t take in its stride. We have found a few last places were our stowage plans failed, a plate in the Q-berth went flying, some previously solid and well retaining shelves said goodbye to the bits and pieces stowed there. I’m still learning which sail configurations work best for the prevailing conditions, something that isn’t mentioned much in theory books is just how important the waves are, they are by far the biggest factor in determining our speed and comfort level. I have noticed here that it’s rare to get a steady stream of waves for longer than a few hours, then waves join the mix from a different direction. All in all though the boat is very happy in these conditions. And so it should be, it could easily be expected to handle 50 knots of wind and much bigger seas as some of the baba owners have shown. I always think of one such sailor, Jeff, on a baba 40, the same model boat as ours, who sailed solo, non stop around the world, encountering much worse conditions than us, a few years ago. He was a reference source for me as to what will fail if stressed enough.
Right now the wind has dropped a little as predicted, but should climb again tonight, then hopefully we have a few days of more peaceful sailing away from those nasty lows.
Kathy says it’s all over for me on the scrabble game, but much like the England team must have felt yesterday, I’m thinking there’s everything to play for.
Kathy managed to bake a couple of delicious loaves yesterday before the weather took hold. The first decent bread we have had in many weeks.
Paul Collister
