I woke up feeling terrible about our torn code zero sail. Although we’ve had it up in stronger winds before there must have been a weakness in the sail from the last tear. But still, if I had made up my mind sooner and been more decisive, we could have saved the sail. Consolation was that we had lots of wind this morning, way up in the high teens. We were flying at seven to eight knots and regenerating too. I felt exhilarated sitting up at the helm, feeling the boat soar through the water and watching the white crested waves all around us. I also felt sooth and comforted.
There is a downside to lots of wind and that is lots of choppy waves. If we were sailing down wind, the boat would flow with the wind and waves and hence provide an smoother motion and be easier on the boat. However we are still trying to head south and so are sailing almost up wind or to the beam (side). This means we are crushing into the choppy waves or have waves bashing onto the side of our hull. The banging and slapping noise of the waves fills the inside cabins and is pretty horrible. Everything creaks, squeaks and shakes and you wonder if the whole boat is going to fall apart.
Unlike a mono hull, catamarans do not heal over on to its side. This means that most things stay upright on a catamaran. I rarely put things away when we’re on the move and we often have tall cups, bowls and even bottles out on the tables while we’re sailing. This is great but the erratic side to side rocking motion of the cat does take getting use to. Naturally as the wind and the waves increases this erratic motion also increases and can become quite uncomfortable. I know I’m complaining. I wanted wind and I got it. I just forgot about the choppy waves.
In the late afternoon we caught our first fish of the trip. A nice medium size mahi mahi. We decided it was the classical music we were blaring out that attracted the fish. At sunset dozens of dolphins came out to play. Watching dolphins dance to Mozart was pretty cool. My night shift was plain sailing.
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