2131hrs 08 Feb 2005 UTC 47’00”S 152’27”W Map Ref 52 2728nm
Frustrating day again yesterday – the wind died to somewhere close to zephyr status but left the swell for us to corkscrew around in. Sails slatting and banging all day – not good for them or the rig and shaking the whole boat. Impossible to sleep or get much else dome and constantly worried about some kind of damage. Wind returned overnight and we are now going East again at 6.5 with about 25 – 40 kt behind us and the #s 4 & 5 twin poled. Bludgers way of sailing but very comfortable and effective.
Thanks for the Ellen McArthur stuff Steve. Good on her – bloody remarkable effort – interesting to compare the technology and progress achieved. She used a 70+ ft cat capable of about 30 kt – don’t know sail plan for those boats but perhaps with an aerofoil mast, twin furlers and full hydraulics to manage the sails and rig and almost completely empty inside apart from her living space. There would be a couple of huge reaching gennakers and probably not a lot else. She would have to tend to the rig and the boat almost without a break to keep it at max speed, stop it breaking apart and generally conserve it as much as possible without compromising speed and would get very little time to sleep. Down south of where we are around 60 – the thing would be jumping from one wave crest to the next and the noise would be unrelenting and deafening – the rig howling and the almost empty hulls hulls pounding and drumming and flexing and maybe all the blocks creaking as well, although she’d have hi tech ones with big bearings. Constantly on the edge, extreme tension, hard and dangerous to move around on deck. And all the time she probably had to look after her sponsors and the media with chatty emails. We dips our me lids to a very brave sailor and I hope the Queen gives her a great big gong. Makes our little effort look woosie and self indulgent.
Meanwhile, we plod on in our old workhorse at about a third of her speed at best and it will certainly take us three times as long. We’ve probably got about the same space to live in but that’s where it stops. We don’t have the speed or the waterline length to ride the big wave crests further south and we have to take anything more than 30 knots very seriously because, as we move so slowly even downwind, the apparent wind is much greater than on a planing hull and exerts relatively much more force on our rig but the boat only accelerates very slowly in response and the force builds up. If we then hit the back of a wave and the hull wants to stop and the rig wants to keep going we’ve got a big problem. So we go slow. With the benefit of inexperience, I had not expected that we would have to do as many sail changes as we have – haven’t been counting but we have averaged at least three per day. Necessary to keep the power down (or up) at a level the boat can accept. Time to go and get some of it off right now – sea building up and we’re starting to surf. 40+ kt Later – done – just the #5 poled out on a long tack strop so if we roll a bit on a big one, the end of the pole wont go in the water. feels much safer, still have 6-7 kt. instead of 8 -9. Reasonable compromise.
Thanks, Malcolm and Tricia for the Intl Space Station orbit times. Too cloudy last night and will be for the next few days, I think but nice to know they are passing by just up the street. Be really interesting to talk to them – anyone know anyone at NASA? We have a satellite phone, vhf and hf radio…
The logs ramblings can be cryptic, so we have added: