Becalmed
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Thu 17 Feb 2011 12:02
Yesterday was the best day yet. Beautiful weather, little swell, and no damages. Awesome! The wind was very light, only 10 to 15kn, but with the Parasailor up I made nevertheless relatively good speed of 6 to 7kn. Until the evening, when the wind began to fall below 10kn and my speed decreased to 4 to 5kn.
But more annoying than the low speed is usually the strong rolling of the boat that comes with it, as every little wave sets the boat in motion. Somthing that is most annoying. Fotunately I was spared this experience because the dynamic pressure wing in the Parasailor creates enough lift to stabilize the boat. Fantastic invention.
So for the first time on this trip I could sit in the cockpit without getting wet and enjoy the trip. I played some tunes on my tin whistle, read in my books, wrote some, and even had a glass of Macallan as the sun went down. Life is good. Octavio send me an email describing in detail the possible issues with the Furler and what to take care of when I have a look at it. And Stephan gave me some tips on how to trim the Parasailor properly. I have to admit that I have very little light wind experience. It's just my luck that there's a lot of it most of the times I sail. Or rather: I don't go out in light winds often. I also took lots of pictures first of the sail, then the sun, and later the moon and the boat in the night. Thanks to a f/1.4 lens and a great sensitivity of the sensor in my camera. For the moon I used the f/4.0 400mm super tele at f/16.
The first part of the night I slept in the cockpit, but then it got a little chilly and damp and I moved into the salon. The direction of the light wind wasn't very stable during the night, and every half hour or hour I had to get up to pull a little on the sheet and ease out the downhaul, or the other way round, to maintain my breathtaking speed of around 4kn. The Parasailor needs a little more attention than the genoa, but the reward of higher speed and stability is well worth it.
Ok now, where's the wind? 4kn? Looks like a day rather for fishing than for sailing ...
Well, as a good friend once said: "You can have anything you want. But not everything."
1180nm to go.