Asunto
Our life afloat on a boat
Sailing Trips
Sailing, sailing, sailing That’s why we live the life we do, so that we can untie the lines and explore the world in our own backyard. From Sept 2015-October 2016 we sailed with a 2 year old and a baby from Vancouver to Mexico, across to Hawaii, across to Alaska and then down, Read More
I’m really starting to get self conscious about posting about all the things that are going wrong on board but here we go…
Last night on my 9pm – 12am shift I was hand steering as we were wing on wing and accidentally back winded the main and before I could get things sorted out we had blown off the vang again. This time the machine screws had pulled out whereas last time they had sheared out so I guess my fix wasn’t as good as I had thought.
Unfortunately it gets worse. With all hands on deck to remove the vang we managed to back wind the Genoa and with the increased winds we actually folded the whisker pole in half. We have one of those Forespar telescoping poles and on my initial inspection it looks as if it folded where the inner tube was still inside the outer tube as the pole was only extended about 3 feet.
I got out on deck and removed the vang, lashed down the pole, finished my shift and went below, however I didn’t sleep instead I had a fitful rest as every bang and clank I heard I thought something else was going to break.
As per usual in the light of day things were better (everything was still badly broken) but I got us back on course and running dead down wind on our main only. Jean rigged up a temp vang to the mid ship cleat and we have the sail lashed over to port as we make 7 plus knots straight to our waypoint.
Honolulu here we come!
Position update at 1200 local time April 11, 2016:
21 45.619 N
153 11.953 W
151 nautical mile noon to noon run
218 nautical miles to destination
7.5 Kt. SOG
270 COG
A pretty uneventful day especially for what we’ve had over the past couple of days.
The winds petered out about 3 amand we ended up motoring until noon. I am still running on the main tanks with 170 L in jerry cans we can top up if need be. I figure we will run as low as possible on the main tanks (without running out which is my typical style) and then put all the jerry cans in during a single fill. If the wind is low enough that we need to motor that much I figure the seas will be calm enough to allow us to do that without much hassle.
Otherwise the routine drags on and we’re starting to dig through our dry food supplies. The provisioning went pretty well with the veg lasting a long time although we are all but out now with only some potatoes, onions and carrots left.
I had decided to make a big breakfast this morning, the first of the trip, and made hash browns and scrambled eggs with onion and salami. Although this is a pretty basic breakfast it was a big process especially on a rolling boat in the middle of the pacific while motor sailing. I made out ok, after spilling half a pot of potatoes on the floor, but by the time I was down it looked as if a bomb had gone off in the galley. I sure am glad the cook doesn’t clean up :s
We also did a double up shift from noon to 3pm to allow us to move the clocks forward to Honolulu time. It gave us an extra 20 miles for the day (not shown below in the daily total) which we will be glad to have on the other end.
Position update at 1200 local time April 10, 2016:
21 29.038 N
150 28.890 W
156 nautical mile noon to noon run
392 nautical miles to destination
6.2 Kt. SOG
294 COG
I must admit that it has been a rather stressful last couple of days.
With all the mishaps we had over the last couple of days, coupled with a general lack of wind and the fact that we felt tantalizing close (triple digit miles) to Hawaii, I was more on edge to be done with this passage then at any other point during this trip.
Personally I’ve been getting enough rest and sleep but I’ve been laying down a lot more than usual and both George and Jean have made comments about being tired. I have to assume that hand steering is slowly taking its mental and physical toll on us.
It is not as if the hand steering is too physically exhausting as we tend to reef the sails down to keep the helm under control, but we have to constantly, and I mean constantly, look at the compass to keep us on course and keep the boat sailing fast and straight. Of course you can sail by the stars and clouds and ship shape, however I’ve found that if you don’t keep an eye on the compass 95% of the time the boat speed slows down, the boat gets off course and you end up doing “S” curves through the water.
I know I have gotten into a rhythm on my shifts. After about the first 5 minutes I settle down and can keep the boat on course within +\- 5 degrees, however keeping the course that tight requires constant motion at the helm and correction of the wheel for every wave and puff of wind.
And to top it all off we broke a lower shroud attachment point yesterday. Luckily it was the forward lower on the lee side which has the least stress of all and I was able to lash it down with some amsteel. It must have broken when we were motor sailing over the last couple days and the boom was slamming and banging about.
Oh well, one more thing to fix and be aware of!
Position update at 1200 local time April 9, 2016:
20 54.403 N
147 23.460 W
160 nautical mile noon to noon run
545 nautical miles to destination
6.8 Kt. SOG
281 COG
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