Thursday 18th - Surfin EU essay

Catmojo
Matt
Thu 18 Jun 2020 07:06
30:34N 19:30W cog106 sog6-7kts 307nm to Lanza wpt at 0530 GMT

Simon Says the wind is all sorted, moves north on Thursday and then NE on Friday and stays there. Simon also said it was an excellent idea and a "good move" to choose a course of East, but I think he was perhaps being sarcastic, with me accidentally blogging "West" a while back when I meant East, obviously. Mind you I am pretty sure he fluffed directions in a similar way at some point with my options being south east OR south east, so Ner, and never mind.

Probably a good job I took in the two reefs yesterday morning with the wind being quite sparkling in the afternoon. I've no idea exactly what speed or apparent wind speed it was as the windex is busted, heyho. I think Windex might be obsolete these days as a brand, but it's the general name used for a device that connects an anemometer to a dial at the helm to show wind speed and direction, and we haven't got one any more on Mojo. But only a few hundred miles to go now so It's Bound To Be Fine! applies.

A closer look at the back of the windex machine shows iffy DIY wiring all self-supported with few if any tie-wraps, so I might try remake the connections and see if it's dead or only slightly dead. It's at times like these when it's actually best that the thing stops working with a dramatic bang and releases the Magic Smoke that fuels all electrical items. Once the Magic Smoke has escaped from anything electrical then it's Definitely Broken, so no need to bother "trying this" or "trying that" - you go to the shop and buy a new one. Much easier.

I set the sails for wind at 120 ish degrees in the afternoon and the lunatic boat charged off at speed with following seas to 3m off port stern. Quite surfy, so we put the Beach Boys on loud (ok it was me) and saw instantaneous 19knots on gps. Some of us sat on the rear step paddling feet in looming waves (ok, that was me as well). Pineapple cocktails while the speed cycled into the teens for a few hours, and Wednesday is Pizza Day too. Very good having others along to help me run the, help me run the, help help me run the boat.

We took in a few rolls of headsail in the evening to calm things down, and by 4am others arrived on deck to declare it Still A Bit Much with the boat banging and swerving. So we rolled in most of the headsail. Again, no real idea of wind speeds but boat speed is now down to 6-7kts and course downwind to point direct at the waypoint. It might have felt fast or even actually been quite fast at times, but we've only actually cut the distance to the waypoint by 170miles over the last 24 hours - just over 7knot average VMG so not that wild, not really.

We contacted the nice guys at Marina Calero again, who agreed that it would probably be best arrive 21st June so no need for any police permit.

So at the moment my hazy maybe plan is stay slower, arrive towards landfall at daybreak on Saturday so we can see the rocky stuff in daylight, hang around at anchor outside Calero overnight on Saturday, and then clear in on Sunday 21st.

BUT another idea would be to bash away upwind a bit harder at least during daylight so we aren't headed by the wind on Friday and Friday Night. Simon Says "Push" in a text message this morning, although that might be another Beach Boys reference. Probably not, though.