Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

John had to wake me up for my shift at 6 am this morning.
Only a light breeze greeted me so I knew we were still motor sailing. When I got up to the helm and had a good look around, I saw loads of dark ominous clouds near by. Behind us was a large squall cloud. John said he’d been tracking it and felt that it was now safely behind us moving away. A great relief.

Half an hour later the wind increased and turned, coming from behind us. I thought great, we can get the Code Zero up as this was the perfect wind for it. Conveniently Steve had just woken up so we started getting ready to put up the larger sail. All of a sudden the wind seemed to be coming from all directions and then died. Lightening flashed to the right of me followed by the load rumble of thunder. The dark clouds I noticed earlier were now storm clouds and much closer. The big large squall behind us was moving nearer too. When I looked to the left, I saw at a distance another squall and a tornado (water spout). I thought, oh noooo! All I had wanted was a little more wind! At this point Steve started getting worried too. We stuffed Steve’s laptop, a hand held GPS and VHF into the micro wave (our Faraday cage) to protect them from a possible lightening strike. Using the radar Steve worked out the size and directions of the various squalls around us and found the safest route away. We headed through a rain cloud, got a major soaking but manage to avoid the lightening clouds and the large dark squall. Once we were out of the squall area the sky stayed cleared for the rest of the day. Thank goodness!

The wind also stayed away. However the effect of no wind on the water was amazing. The ocean all around us, as far the eyes could see, was almost flat. The water was crystal clear and a deep sapphire blue. It was so smooth that it looked like waves of glassy silk. You could see the reflections of fluffy clouds on the surface all around. When we leaned over the boat, our reflection was like looking in a mirror. Every movement on the silky water could be seen clearly and generated an effect. A sudden slight breeze causing intricate ripples. Flying fish leaving trails of fascinating patterns. At one point we entered turtle highway. We saw so many turtles swim by that we lost count. All three of us were so mesmerized by the water that we spent hours just staring out at it. The highlight was certainly sunset. The red sun reflected repeatedly on water was so bright it was almost blinding. The ocean was like molten metal of silver, gold and purple. It was quite stunning.

I forgot to mention that since early morning there was this little bird flying around our boat. After lunch the bird landed on one our lines and just stayed there. We decided it must be lost and was exhausted. I put out some bread crumbs and water right by it but it didn’t move. It finally flew away at sunset towards the sunset. We hoped that it realized there was no land for thousands of miles in that direction.

After sunset Steve noticed an anomaly in the battery gauges while we were recharging. I won’t go into details as I’m sure Steve will in his blog but the upshot was the batteries had overheated. We had to stop the motors and allow the batteries to cool down. Since the sea was flat and there was no wind, we just floated there, going nowhere, just like being on an anchorage. We had dinner, then the boys watched a movie while I had a sleep before my 9 am to midnight watch. During my sleep the wind picked up a little, so when I woke up for my watch we were sailing albeit very slowly. Steve decided that he wanted to continue cooling down the batteries until he took over from my shift at midnight so no motoring. He and John were both very tired and so went off to bed. Soon after, the wind died again. I noticed a very small current so tried to keep the boat pointed toward our heading. As the boat drifted at a snails pace I passed the time reading. At the end of my three hour shift the boat had drifted just over a mile. There was only one problem. We’d moved backwards!

Looking back at Saturday I remember little about my midnight to 3am shift. Maybe it’s because I’m struggling to consciousness shortly after waking at midnight. I’ve decided I don’t really like this shift rotation, or at least my position on it, as I rarely get more than 3 hours sleep at a stretch, even though I get 6 hour segments off. The timing just doesn’t work. I can’t get to sleep at 7pm so I have to wait to nearer 9pm to sleep. Once I go to sleep at 3am I’m usually awake again by 6am as dawn wakes me as I know there are things to do at that time. I want to stick this out to the Galapagos and try and make it work but if I can’t we’ll need to revise the schedule somehow for the longer trip.

When I woke at 6am of the morning of day 2 it was to cloudy skies, winds, rain and squalls. We were in the middle of a patch of squalls clearly seen around us and on the radar. We’d been motor sailing all night as until then the wind had been negligible but at least for a while we had some wind. Helen even spotted a water spout – a mini tornado – just a few miles away. I didn’t think we had the coriolis force down here to whip these up but we do it seems. I shifted course to try and avoid the squalls but while two beared down on us either side another formed right on top of us from nowhere it seemed. I turned the boat and ran the gap between the original two squalls and we were out of the line and into dead air again.

At 8am we tuned into the Pan Pacific Net to report our position. It was great to hear Jackster on the net who had just left Panama City bound for the Galapagos. We will certainly be there together probably arriving within a day or two of each other.

That was it for the wind. For most of the rest of the day we saw nothing more than 2 knots of wind, often less or zero. The ocean at times was reduced to an undulating mirror with the occasional knot or two of wind creating small ripples. We saw many turtles swimming by doing their own thing and the occasional coconut. Sometimes it was hard to tell the two. We were joined from time to time by two birds. One a sea bird who eventually settled down on our port spreader. The other appeared to be some land bird, perhaps lost at sea. It eventually settled down on our port job sheet looking quite exhausted and seemingly too tired to move when we came near. Helen put out some bread and water in case it wanted to avail itself but I never saw it approach them. We also saw a few dolphins in the distance which didn’t come to the boat.

We kept to our 4 knot strategy all day making it almost 24 hours of continuous motor sailing in this fashion. Around 6pm I noticed the charging cycle working a little differently than normal. Normally the 72V banks accept maximum amps charging – somewhere around 130A – until the voltage on the banks reaches around 86V. At that time the amps going into the banks starts to reduce. We usually cut charging around 60A. This time the amps started reducing before we reached 75V. I don’t like changes until I understand them. It dawned on me we’d been running high currents in and out of the batteries for a whole day now and as they had non-zero resistance, perhaps we were building up heat. I accessed one banks and found them very hot. In fact, the water inside the cells was close to boiling. Not good at all. We therefore stopped dead in the water for dinner. John and I watched a movie while Helen rested during which time 7 knots of wind appeared from nowhere. Still with the rear hatches open for ventilation we raised the sails to at least make some progress. We’d been drifting at half a knot to the ENE so 3 knots to the SW was much better progress.

Once the movie was finished we closed up the lockers putting all the supplies we’d had there back in place. It was now Helen’s 9pm shift so I woke her and took my needed three hours sleep.

Now we are back motoring. The wind had died to next to nothing during Helen’s shift. She’d left the boat to drift knowing the batteries were hot and I needed my rest. Now that we’re motoring again we’re abandoning the 4 knot approach as it’s not sustainable over the long term. We have sufficient fuel for 5 days of motoring non-stop. By cruising at 6 knots I’m allowing about 30A at most to flow into the batteries. This should limit any further cooking as most of the current is flowing directly through to the motors. My going a little faster we’ll make better progress against the current and, hopefully, reach wind sooner.

Looking back on the day the big surprise was hitting what felt like the doldrums so early in our trip. The mornings forecast had the ITCZ as high as 8N angling down just to the south of us. This means it could shift south over the next few days matching our course. That would be a real drag. I don’t want to motor non-stop for too long so I’ll need to plan rest stops if this continues to be the case.