Blog

As you can tell I’m still processing my decision. It dawned on me today that this is the second best outcome possible for my (first?) attempt. Of course, the best was the obvious one: finish the course per the WSSRC rules. But coming all the way through the doldrums, and then suffering compromising issues close enough from home to repair, that a U-turn even makes sense. That’s really good too! It means an excellent shakedown cruise, and no repair/refit in difficult/expensive places. Of course, we’re not home yet. The stretch of water between Hawaii and San Francisco, with winter coming, can reserve some nasty surprises. So let’s not jinx it!

One day at a time

What else happened today? We’ve been motor-sailing most day, and only now as I write this and the night is falling is the engine off. We had a light wind about 70-90 off the port bow for most of the day, which worked out great! Now the wind is shifty, but I hope will establish itself firmly soon. Since we motored so much I had to refill the tank. The refill cap is at deck level, which makes this task difficult. I didn’t spill to much (I have absorbent mats) but the funnel extension fell into the fuel tank refill hose! I’ll have to fish it out some day. With light wind today I went up to first reef. I discovered that there was major chafe, and had to do a temporary fix on that. It’ll need replacement. I also bagged up the staysail (should have done that October first!), and moved the corpse of “Big” in the forepeak. I ended the day with nonna’s lasagna and a decadent dark chocolate cheesecake. Yeah! Now if the wind could stop shifting to the north everything would be peachy!

SSS

No, not the Singlehanded Sailing Society, instead Serenity, Seamanship, then Speed. So far I had not been at sea more than 16 days, and that was on a heavily crewed boat. Solo, my max was less than 12 days. I had forgotten some essentials. Or more specifically, I knew them but was not acting accordingly. Serenity: the skipper must be at peace so as to be able to focus on the task at hand with his/her undivided attention. Seamanship: everything must be kept under close watch, and if necessary, corrective actions taken swiftly. Do not leave anything for the hand of Neptune. He’s quite mischievous, and will play tricks on you that you hadn’t even thought of possible. Speed: when skipper is happy, and the boat ship shape, then pedal to the metal. Only then. Dang, still shifting to the north. Something will have to be done, and since I want out of the doldrums, I may start the engine again. Look up into the stars! Until next time.

I think I owe it to Marie and the doldrums!

My last post may have sounded like in a way I didn’t care. I do. This sequence of events was not the preferred path, but for some reason I’m resigned, or more specifically looking ahead. I’m uncertain of what will happen next. Tom, Randall and Skip, to the extent possible, are helping with the search for a replacement boom, or a repair, for which I’m very grateful. Then there’s of course the sail home, which is no walk in the park! Finding employment again? Refit Changabang for another start? Train more? Try again? I’m comforted by all the positive comments from everyone. I’m glad too I was able to give you all some excitement! So let’s restate the goal of what started 17 days ago: go South, through the doldrums, hit your first southeasterlies squall, then come back home. That would be some serious shakedown cruise! I will say that in the end, although too late, one competent person did tell me that I should slap a fiberglass sleeve on the boom (which we were considering), and carry on. French. And I agree it would likely work, but should it fail then it would likely do so in the worst place, where recovery of the damage at sea would be hard, where shipping would be very expensive, and other red tape might make delivery a concern. This is not even considering that some countries are closed due to covid-19. There was more than “will the repair hold?” that went into the decision to stay in the Northern hemisphere. Right now, I’m nurturing the boom, probably a little too much, and we’re slogging along. In fact, I motored for an hour or so today. Yesterday, I fixed the 2:1 fractional spinnaker/code O halyard, and had some good learning with the small code 0. Today I played a little with the gennaker. We had to manage a couple squalls with winds hitting 20+ kts on the nose, which all lead to good reefing practice. As night fell we were left with a few knots of wind on the nose, so we’re back to slowly motoring at 3.5 kts. There’s no sound insulation around the engine “room”, which means it’s really loud inside, making sleep impossible for me. Life aboard is just the same as it always was: sleep, wake up finding the boat or sails need attention, prepare food, dispense water, respond to messages, take a nap, adjust the sails, look around for squalls, write a blog post, check emails, use the outdoor “fasealities”, check the weather forecast and ponder where to go, change sail, try something new, take a picture, eat a snack bar, drink, listen to music, fill in the log book, get hit by a squall, brush my teeth, go down to try to sleep, wake up, check boat status, close eyes, drift, wake up, check boat status, adjust sails, try another position in the bunk, what time is it?, drift into a strange dream with a raccoon encounter, wake up, check boat status, is that sunlight? And another day starts. The picture is from yesterday.

Rain, rain, rain. Heavy, light, straight, sideways, short lived, or like now, everlasting. That’s been on the menu du jour since my last report. Little by little, by riding baby squalls, this morning, it felt like I had escaped the doldrums. Not so, I’m not sure what you call what I’m stuck in but it’s wet and slow going, with heavy banging in swell on the bow, and the sails slatting. Maybe by tomorrow we’ll be in better sailing conditions. I’m still trying to figure out my next step wrt the boom damage. For now, we’re sailing under-canvassed, if that’s even a word. Things are also slow going inside the cabin as the skipper is being adjusted to the reality of what he’s signed himself up for. There’s been a lot of work done to get some real sleep. I sleep with the hatch open so that if wind picks up or it rains, I can hope that it’ll wake me up, and I can try to harvest some forward momentum from the baby squalls. Quick note: I’m not asking for monster squalls! Just came back from a few trips outside. The wind is gone again. I took a reef out of the mainsail, and discovered a batten cap stud had come unscrewed. So I had to fix that. Then I noticed that the batten of the genoa was lying on the foredeck. So I’ll have to look at that later on. I’m just hoping to get out of the doldrums now. Really.

How funny I should end my report of yesterday with forecast of light wind in the approach to Torres Strait. As it is I am becalmed since mid day I think. As night came I abandoned all hope of wind: no wind during the afternoon, one short lived squall to get us a little further South, and no wind pick up as night fell. There’s a tiny amount of wind, which I could work with in a flat sea but we’re stuck in swells from multiple directions, which roll the boat, shake the sails, and all but make forward progress in any direction impossible. What else is going on CaB? Well, on the positive side, we fixed the secondary autopilot by swapping two wires (still no idea as to why we had to do this). During the squall, I managed to collect 5 gallons of water off the fold of the first reef. I finished repairing the masthead spinnaker halyard. And since we are becalmed I used the engine to charge the batteries, and the engine started! Now, on the other side, the primary autopilot froze the tiller when disengaged again. A hit with the hammer worked just like last time. I spent the whole afternoon butt naked outside, thinking I was clear of the sun, trying to fix the autopilot and make the boat move. Not so, I have sun burn in many places. But the winner for the day is the boom. I noticed a fracture on the side, where I use the boom downhaul. I’m not sure what to think of it as I thought I was being careful not to apply too much pressure there. I don’t think it was there before. It’s not like I have a spare boom. I’ve asked Cree and Ruben for their opinion. Maybe I can make a fiberglass sleeve to strengthen the area. Regardless, I am marching on. That is, if the wind shows up. In truth, it’s been a bit of a downhill run since Saturday. I don’t feel great about it all. I’m not even through 10% of the distance. Maybe it’s par for the course. Let’s hope it’ll all work out in the end. P.S.: there should be two pictures with this blog post; they may be grouped in a slideshow …