Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Let the boat be still! This continuous rocking and swaying is beginning to get to me. Its fine when I’m up on the helm enjoying the ride and watching the waves, but trying to get anything done inside is almost impossible. Moving around the boat, keeping your balance is a bit like dancing. One step forward, two quick step back, one to the left, five hurtling step forward as the boat plunges down a swell. One step back, two steps to the left, cha cha chah, cha cha chaaaaaaah…
John doesn’t seem to mind the movement. It’s beginning to effect Steve a little bit though. We discussed what we would prefer. A few days of calmer, slower sailing or arriving at landfall earlier. John and Steve chose landfall early. I want both!

A big milestone today. We crossed the half way mark. Steve wanted chicken curry to help celebrate so that’s what we had for dinner. I was originally going to cook fish, thinking that if I use up the last of our fish, we might catch more! After dinner, I dug up some English chocolate which I’d kept hidden from the boys. Their faces lit up as if it was Christmas when I brought it out. Thanks Ella for the chocs.

The actual milestone occurred about 10:45 pm. Steve will probably explain how he worked out our mid point and all other facts in his blog. The important thing is that when the number of miles we ‘d done matched the number of miles we have left to do, we cracked open a bottle of bubbly. This is the first drop of alcohol we’ve had since leaving the Galapagos. After consuming our glass of wine, Steve and John went to bed and I started my night shift. Passing the half way mark was a real mental boost and I felt quite high and happy. I think the glass of wine helped too.

So what did we see today? Sea, sky, clouds, sun and flying fish.

The big event for day 10 was passing our half way point. There’s more than one way to define half way and we chose the point where the distance we’d covered matched the distance we had left to go. These two figures matched around 10:35pm during my night watch. We’d agreed to be all up for it and celebrate at that time rather than wait for the next day. I woke Helen and John and we popped the cork on a bottle of bubbly when the numbers matched. 1,463nm covered, 1,463nm to go.

The wind remained too high and the seas too bumpy for me to attempt rigging a new outhaul so we remain on a reefed main. Winds have died down overnight so hopefully today I can put one in as we now need it to maintain a decent boat speed.

It’s become significantly more difficult to find good times to get emails in and out via the radio as the nearest station is over 2,000 miles away. I’m still able to work stations 4,000 miles away which suggests the ones in New Zealand may become useful soon.

Apart from the outhaul the boat appears fine. I am watching the pin holding the boom to the gooseneck as it keeps working it’s way up to the cotter pin and putting pressure on it. This may be normal but I’m obsessing it as this could be a point of failure that could cause us a real hassle. I’ve rigged a line to prevent the boom from falling too far if the pin works it way out.

Another minor issue is my main amp counter for the house bank is counting the amps out faster than it counts them in. We’ve been charging solely on wind, sun and cross charging from the drive bank for the last 9 days. Normally the house bank would get a strong burst from the main charger each time we do a wash and the subsequent days solar charging often triggers a reset. Without the reset the meter thinks the batteries are dangerously low but the voltage remains handsomely high no doubt in a large part to the amount of amp hours we’ve made from wind generation. In the end it’s the volts that count so this remains a niggling concern which will solve itself once we arrive in Fatu Hiva and we play catch up on the washes. I’m denied Helen use of the washing machine at sea as I don’t want to put pressure on the bearings while we’re tossing around at sea. Fixing the machine will be hell so it’s to be treated very carefully and used only in a calm anchorage.

Today we saw sea, sky, clouds, sun and flying fish. That being said, we didn’t see much sun as it was mostly cloudy and the seas were big – in the 10-12 foot range – as a result of winds in the low to mid 20s for most of the day.

So, the outhaul story. Shortly after taking over from John at 5am I heard a bit of a thunk. That in of itself is not too unusual as in the conditions we were experiencing the odd hull slap or sail flap can occur. I checked around and soon found the clew of the main sail (bottom rear) flapping as a result of the new outhaul chaffing through. This was all my fault. The outhaul is supposed to control the tension in the foot of the sail. I had let it out quite a way to change the shape of the main considerably to improve our down wind handling. However, the pulley at the rear of the boom is not shaped for this angle and the line must have rubbed the metal surround.

I immediately called John back up for assistance – fortunately he was still awake wondering if I’d be need help reefing as the winds were really picking up. By point the boat more into wind and letting the boom right out we were able to relieve enough pressure on the main to put a tight first reef in. Without tension at the base of the main, the bottom few feet were flapping madly in the wind. I did not want to go up onto the bimini in the dark without being able to see what the sea was doing so I went forward and raised the lazy bag on the downwind side to collect up the loose sail. This seemed to work although it was not ideal. John was able to head back to sleep and I awaited dawn. When Helen awoke I was able to repeat the previous days maneuver heading up a little to put pressure on the main to minimise movement. This time I gave Helen specific instructions not to do anything while I was up there which she nearly followed. I was able to collect up the loose end of the sail and tie it down to the boom which stabalized the sail better than before. Given the rough conditions I was not prepared to try and fish the old outhaul out of the boom nor retie a fixed outhaul. That can wait for calmer conditions.

For most of yesterday we flew. We were often doing 12 knots as we flew down the big waves and averages over 9 knots were not uncommon. Around 11 knots the props seem to cavitate so we would slow the boat down by regenerating. We eventually had to stop as we were putting more into the drive batteries than we could consume and were running into an over voltage situation. I would occasionally look at the distance made in the last 24 hours by checking our track and at one point I saw 192nm – not bad when we’re getting our power for free. We haven’t been diligent looking at the distance log on the GPS which would probably show a slightly higher value as a result of the weaving of the boat through the waves.

I’d forgotten to mention that on day 8 I had started insisting we all practice steering by hand. If we lost the autopilot we would be plunged into it and that is not the time to be learning as chances are any failure would occur in extreme conditions. We all fared differently and some (perhaps a lot) of practice is required. The day 9 conditions were not conducive to practice so I didn’t insist.

Unless the winds die right down we expect to pass the midway point late today or early tomorrow. A few days I did a quick bit of trigonometry. Imagine a straight line from the Galapagos to the Marquesas. If you’re imagining properly this straight line goes right through the earth. The path we have to travel follows the arc of a circle rising over the straight line like a well rounded hill. The height of this hill turns out to just over 300nm. So we’ve just about sailed up this 300nm hill (45 times the height of Everest) and are about to sail down the other side.

We put a bottle of bubbly in the fridge for celebration – our one and only alcoholic concession for the trip. This celebration may have to wait till tomorrow as our midway point will probably occur at night.

No fish on the lines for the past three days.