Neptune’s Wrath
Catmojo
Matt
Fri 8 May 2026 20:18
Lightning in the distance ahead in the early morning. Ooer! I slowed down and it passed.
Then I heard a hissing noise, hunted under a sofa, found a water leak from a tiny pinhole in a pipe, fixed it, and dried the starboard bilge.
Then the wind piped up. The PredictWind forecast said 6-8knots all day, but it went way above 15. Hmm! The boat bounced along at 8,9, 10 knots… bit much with apparent 23knots so I took in the 2nd reef. An hour later the reef line broke. Fortunately I’d set the topping lift to catch the boom, so no damage.
It’s my first time using PredictWind…. and it’s a bit weird. It seems to assign equal validity to all forecasts, today and in a fortnight. Last week I saw almost everyone else head very north. Two days later, all change, High Seas warning above 31north. The software kinda SEEMS to give a super-accurate route but all the animation and results are based on flaky forecasts and strict adherence to a percentage of max performance.
Latest is that the main halliard has wrapped itself around something up the mast. Hopefully I can free it going downwind and twirling the line a bit. I’ll do it tomorrow and swap the reef line for proper Dyneema stuff when the sea’s calmer.
I found a can of beer and threw it in the sea as an offering to Neptune. The sun’s come out, back down to 11 knots of wind, 13-14 apparent and motorsailing with foresail, no
main for now. Another good reason to bring enough fuel to motor almost the entire way - because anything might happen, and a fair bit of on one day like this. Maybe it was a test?