All sails up

Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Mon 10 Sep 2012 22:10
Monday, 2012-09-10, 11:30 UTC-10, 18:37.170S, 159:34.390W, COG 255, SOG 5.5kn, Wind 12kn E

I'm always surprised how much of a difference the weather makes. I mean, of course it makes a difference, sailing is all about the weather. But still ... only 5kn of wind more or less and the whole experience changes completely. During the night it calmed down and when the sun came up this morning I felt so rested and energetic that I changed sails before even thinking about breakfast.

I set the main-sail and the new doyle gennaker (first time up!), then fiddled with the lines a bit. Happy with the setup I ran around the deck wth the GoPRO, recording everything, and then I made pancakes with eggs and bacon for breakfast. Yay! What a difference compared to the last days, when I didn't feel like doing anything because it was so rolly that everything was so much effort.

Forecast says it's going to stay like this for two days, and then the effects of that trough coming from Fiji should show. Well, I don't mind two nice & slow days at all. Looks like I'll get to test that Doyle Gennaker thoroughly. Nice colors btw - green, grey and orange.

Had a little electrical problem earlier. The raymarine stuff was complaining about low battery voltage. But the battieres are 90% full, so it could only be ... always the same ... a connection problem. I tracked it to an old electric mains switch. I have three switches - one near the battery which I installed, and two near the switch panel which came with the boat (I wonder why the dude installed two in the first place). One of the old ones was causing the trouble. I should have replaced it a long time ago, but I couldn't find one that fitted and I was tired of drilling holes into my boat. Anyway, all I could do now was bridge it with a short cable, which I reccon is ok for now because there are two more switches left to turn off mains in case I get hit by a Klingon photon torpedo and the switch panel starts exploding or whatever. Again I'm surprised that the problem came up during nice weather - very unusual. Looks like this is my lucky trip! I keep my fingers crossed that my luck holds until Niue :-)