Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

During the night, the wind picked up, not by much, but enough to sail at around 4 to 5 knots. I thought it was quite pleasant, the boys though it was too slow and sedate. Steve feels that for days he’s been expecting landfall in three of four days.
While on my morning watch, I saw something fly up from the water and hit the back deck hard near the cockpit. It was a skip jack tuna. Not very big, about two pounds or so, but enough to feed the three of us. The impact was so hard that half of its head was flattened and blood had splattered all around the deck and the cockpit area. After Steve cleaned and gutted the tuna, I got down to cleaning the splattered blood. The smell was pretty unpleasant as the fish blood had sprayed everywhere including on our seat cushions. The smell lingered for the rest of day. By dinner time, neither John nor I wanted to eat fish. I dug out the beef patties I’d been saving and we had cheeseburgers instead! Typical really, for days we’ve been dying for fish and when we catch one, we’re not in the mood.
After dinner just as Steve was bringing in the fishing line, we caught another bigger tuna! Typical!

383nm to go. Just over 100nm closer in one day. Better than the day before but still in the zone where we would have been doing better with the big sail. For a while I contemplated getting it out again but my memory reminded me of the scale of the job so I didn’t go too far with that idea.

Day 18 was a mixed day for me. I spent a lot of time sleeping. Maybe I’m a little down. It seems we’ve been about 4 or 5 days off landfall for 4 or 5 days. While the miles to go have been decreasing the time we need to get there seems to remain the same. May the 2nd landfall remains an outside possibility if the winds return to their previous form which seems unlikely. May 3rd is looking more and more like the day.

We had some uplifting moments. During the morning we landed a skipjack tuna although not using the lines. Either through chasing food or avoiding being food the tuna must have been airborne as it slammed into our deck above our cabin smasing it’s face right in then bouncing over the seating area to land dead on the aft walkway. The impact was so bad that blood was spattered everywhere. We cleaned the boat and fish and bagged the latter placing it into the freezer. In the late afternoon we spotted some dolphin. They’re supposed to bring luck and soon after it seemed the wind did pick up a little. Also, just after dusk, when pulling in the lines, I discovered one had tripped the nut alarm without us hearing it – perhaps during dinner. On the end of the line was another skipjack tuna – this one being a little larger than the earlier ‘gift’.

Apart from that the only other ‘event’ was that I finished the last of my Sherlock Holmes stories, “Valley of Fear”. Time to move on to other topics and authors.

This was one of the possible land fall dates, when we were going fast.

When we were doing 8,9-10 knots, ok for 24 hours a day, we were getting a bit bashed about, had sleep deprivation, constant 90 decibel roar of the sea, which is very close to white noise.

Add an orange jumpsuit, oversized sack cloth hat and a daily 15 minute water boarding session and it would have been the ideal CIA extradition package holiday.

I would rather have all of that, plus the CIA extras, than sit here plodding along at 2-3 knots. We sometimes touch 4-5, but not for long. Very very bored with this now.

May the 4th seems to be the land fall day. Totally rubbish.

On the upside, during mum’s morning watch, a tuna decided to have a fight with our boat, flew out of the water and head butted the deck, one of the metal poles, then the deck again. Steve promptly gutted it and put its bashed in head/body into the freezer.

In the evening we actually caught a tuna on one of the lines, but didn’t realise until Steve brought them in for the night. That too has been gutted, de-tailed, beheaded and is in the freezer awaiting a date with me and the filleting knife tomorrow.

If we can get our speed up a light bit and catch more tuna/fish, I just might be happy with the crap arrival date.

Too little wind is almost as bad as too much wind. Today we had too little. With not enough wind to glide us over the waves and hold the main sail steady, the boat bobbed uncomfortably side to side on the waves, the main sail and boom banged and flapped around.
We may have averaged about two to three knots. Not good at all.
Steve got so desperate he pulled out our torn code zero and started sewing it up. Hoping to mend it enough so that we could use it in the light wind. We watched him struggle with yards and yards and yards of light weight frayed sail. After hours of sewing and barely making a dent in the tear, he gave up.
Yesterday was the best day. Today is the worse.

490nm to go. That says it all. Although our path through the water was a little longer we’re only 86nm closer to our destination than 24 hours ago. We were hoping for boat speeds over 5 knots. We ended up hoping for 3 by end of day. The winds ended up very light. What little swell we had would send the sail flapping as they had so little pressure on them. It was quite annoying. Another day of hoping each new puff of wind, each small increase in the swell, each surge of the wind gen (or, towards the end, the fact that it would turn) would be the resumtion of decent winds.

In my exasperation I took out the shredded Code Zero and selected a damaged section to sew up to see what it would take. After several hours of stitching I assessed my position. It looked hopeless. I could have willingly sat there for two days sewing if I felt I could have ended up with a working sail. But the way the top of the sail had torn through the reinforced material close to the ring I felt I could never make that part strong enough using the skills I have. So this effort was abandoned despite my dislike for quitting a task.

We used the continued lull for another wash. Helen seems quite happy for these conditions to continue albeit perhaps with boat speeds nearer the previous day. I’m less than happy and John less than me. In his case his days aboard the boat are dwindling and each day at sea is one less for him to add something different to this unique experience. For Helen and I we have this year and the next to enjoy the South Pacific so the odd day here and there doesn’t mean much against the big picture.

We’re now needing an average of 6 knots for the rest of the trip to make it during daylight on the 2nd of May. With the privelege of actually being in day 18 I can say that in the last few minutes the wind has just picked up and we’re now doing just over 5 knots – what we needed yesterday. There is hope yet if this upward trend continues and, more importantly, doesn’t disappear. Otherwise we’ll have to settle on the 3rd. Originally, planning for the odd day at standstill, I set a pessimistic expectation of 24 days for the crossing. If we arrive on the 3rd then it will be only 21 despite our poor days so it’s not as bad as our worst case but that doesn’t make me feel that much better.