Monday, April 20, 2015

Mexico-Hawaii Log4


  • Day 9

Grrrr. Wind is perfect, waves are ... Well ... As usual ... Quite big ... But the sky is overcast!
The good news is myrrh was right and we are gonna cross the mid point of our journey today. Yeah! No return point.

We just crossed the half way mark. From now on it is easier to continue than to go back (from a sailing standpoint that was already true because of the prevailing winds east ), but still this is quite an achievement. Who knew.
The boat is behaving perfectly. We eventually bypassed the hot water tank - we are not taking showers anyway - and managed to bleed this damn engine fresh water circuit : we can even use the engine if we had too now. Between engine repairs and philosophical discussions - let a call them arguments - do not put two French in the same cockpit and expect to come to a consensus, the boat continue to sail herself in light winds and moderate seas, imperturbable. Except the glover at sun - we are still waiting for the sun - it would be perfect. My sixth sense tell me we should clear of clouds in one day. Add some playful dolphins and you have the perfect sailing postcard. We are so lucky to have been able to make this dream to come to a reality. Half of it, at least. For now.


  • Day 10

Today: back to the future. We decided to start to catch back on the HST as our clocks were still on Mexico time. We have 3 hours to catch in one week. Little bit like having the Daylight Saving time 3 times in a row the same week. But one hour at a time, we change our watches. The highlight of the day was the return of the sun, late afternoon. Still too cloudy  for a real sunset, but at least it was warmer on deck.
Surprise of the day was the first real gear failure with the windvane losing control after a line shafted and broke. Boat got weather helm, she just rounded up and wait for us to realize no one was at the helm. Fix was easy, but we will have to be more careful and look for shaffing there now. We replaced a halyard for re spinnaker, I.e. we are ready if the wind goes down, to try  that old asymmetric we found.
Last but not at least, we avoided a close encounter with another cargo ship. AIS warned us one half hour before predicted collision path, then we safely derouted a bit and slide 2 miles from it. Even at that distance, by night, those are really big and impressive. As for the sailing, it looks now we has the same sea and winds conditions for days. We are still reaching to much West, but we cannot go deeper than that with seas tormented like ours. Wind supposed to shift soon and will allow us to veer South. But overall, we are making good progress and will be back home soon.


  • Day 11

Today : French haute couture. We brought down the genoa today, leveraging a below of average wind. This genoa is really big, 140%, and even in only 10 knots of wind, it was challenging for the two of us. After that, we started sewing the leech. Sewing sail cloth - Dacron - by hand,  is not an easy task, ask our poor fingers. We made slower progress than expected, and ended sewing all day, both of us. Just as the sun was going down,we managed the put the sail up. Broken back, crying eyes, bloody fingers, but it worked. Let s hope it hold until Hawaii now. Except that ? Not much. The boat continues to sail herself, The sun continues to hide behind the clouds, and the waves actually receded a bit, which makes the ride more comfortable. For sure, we are gonna sleep well tonight... Between two watches :(

Sunday, April 19

Wind map April 19 11pm HST

No comments :

Post a Comment