Day 15, 5th July. 40-48N, 172-00E. Daily Run: 90 NM. Weather: 10 Knots SE, Sunny, Fresh. 2727 NM to go
Yesterday was very calm, no wind at all, so a day for drifting and doing jobs. I dropped the sails to stop the clanking and flapping and turned the engine off for the afternoon. The sea had calmed but there where still enough waves/swell to keep the boat rocking and rolling. It was a day for jobs, I went around the boat checking for chafe and damage. At the bow I found the anchor rubbing on the whisker stay, there was a bit of plastic there to prevent this, but it had slid out of the way. Next we unrolled the genoa and I climbed the mast a little to reach the clew, where the sheets are attached, I moved the bowline knots a couple of inches along to move the chafe point out of the ring in the sail. There wasn’t any chafe as such, but a distinct compression of the rope, I hope this will be good for the rest of the passage now. I had noticed the topping lift was getting difficult to use, on this boat the boom and sail are too heavy to lift by puling the topping lift by hand at the mast, and the boat came with a block and tackle 4:1 at the rear of the boom, that connects to the usual topping lift. The topping lift is used to lift the boom up in the air when putting sails up, so the sail can be tensioned without the weight of the boom pulling it down. It also helps a lot when reefing. Anyway one of the blocks had smashed its sheave. My fault I’m sure, as I’m often cranking in the main, when the topping lift isn’t slack enough and putting a lot of strain on it. That was fixed, but I noticed I’m getting low on blocks now. The schoolboy wooden box for bits and pieces that fell off the pedestal was cobbled back together and tied to the pedestal, that’s better than having nothing and a box flying around the cockpit sole. Finally I fitted bungee cord to Kathy’s bookshelf in the hope it will stop her books doing kamikaze dives on each big wave.
Later in the evening there was a few knots of wind, so I raised the mainsail to see if that might help stop the rolling while we slowly motored east, however the sail jammed. This has happened before and my temp repair had failed, as I expected it to. Basically the top runner for the head of the sail is attached to the metal plate at the sails head with woven tape, however the slot in the plate has right angle edges that are perfect for cutting fabric, which they have done, twice now. I repaired it with new tape and doubled up on it. It can break when it’s up fine, it’s only a problem when raising the sail. I need to take a file, or maybe the dremmel is the answer, to the metal and round off the edges. I also need to write to Rolly Tasker, the sailmaker and point out the problem with their sail design/construction. After all that, the main only flapped itself to death and had to come down again.
So for the night we ran with the engine ticking over, making 3 knots east, for no other reason than the fact I can’t sleep when we are drifting aimlessly. We saw one ship yesterday, Closest point of approach (CPA) was 5 NM
6AM this morning and I popped on deck to check all was well and was delighted to see a huge school of dolphins all around the boat and many more further away, then a few hundred metres in front of the boat I saw two big whales coasting along, very gracefully, making a heck of a speed too. The sea was calm and the sun had not long risen on a clear sky. It was quite a magical scene. The wind was slowly building and by 7AM I had the main up and the genoa out and we are close hauled making a healthy 6 knots in 10 knots of wind over a lovely calm sea.
The forecasts show that a deepish low is moving up on us and will meet the pacific high around the same time as us, the charts have the word ‘GALE’ over the convergence area where the low pushes into the high. 30-40 knot winds are forecast, and I guess big waves too. My plan is to try to stay south of this, and at the moment I’m plucking 42deg North as the highest latitude I should go. Once the low has passed we will turn to the north (NE) and follow it’s tail through and pass north of the high and onto our destination. That’s the plan anyway. There’s plenty of typhoon activity over near Japan right now and a hurricane off Mexico, but where we are we should be very safe and out of their reach.
At midday here, the wind has picked up to a good 10-12 knots and we are flying along. Today marks our 2nd week at sea, these two weeks seem to have flown by, in the next few days we hope to reach the halfway mark.
Paul Collister
PS I had the wrong title for yesterdays blog, should have been day 14
