Day 13: Well I wanted a challenge....hmmm!!

Solo but not Alone
Howard Fairbank
Fri 21 Dec 2007 12:03
 
 

                                  Solo but not Alone!  

 

 

                                                        Newsletter  15:   19 December 2007 

                                                    

Day:                                                               15

Position:                                                       19:33.073N  49:34.101W 

Approx Miles from San Sebastian:              2005 

Approx Miles to go to Road Town:              813                                                              

 

Note:  All times are GMT time, and will be for the whole trip.

            Miles are Nautical Miles, where 1 mile = 1.8 km

 

            Ohh, for those non-nautically orientated, a 'knot', among other things,  is 1 nautical mile per hour

            If it seems all funny units...its not, there is a very good basis: 1 nautical mile is equal to one minute of latitude on the earth's surface.

 

 

Hello Friends, and Supporters,

 

Sorry for not much info yesterday, but as you probably picked up things swamped me.....

 

Things have definitely hooted up a lot.....no relaxation time, continuously having to be alert, and a quite a few 'issues' popping up...the 'Test' continues.....more below!

 

Before I go into that, its nice to see good progress continues with less than 800 miles to go now. I have sailed quite a bit in a lot of different weather conditions, but I must say the this trip so far must rate as one of the most difficult for effort put in and miles delivered. Part of it is because of sailing solo, as work load and ability to respond to changing weather conditions is much lower, but also I think the fact that the course I need to Road Town is virtually dead downwind now. This makes for extremely difficult sailing conditions because I am always on the edge of the 20-30 wind angle. I guess the 60 footers, are faster and REALLY tack downwind doing 40-50 wind angles and getting huge benefits in speed from this. 

 

The weather conditions continuously change, and I have to always try and be one step ahead...not that easy and definitely not relaxing...but then this is a full on sailing adventure!

 

In the 6 hrs since 5am this morning, I have had winds from 5 knots to 32 knots, varying in angle of 70 degrees. I have had beautiful moon, big grey low 'flying' squall clouds, and then in the last hour I had a torrential downpour, that forced me into oilskins..... I thought it would be the 'normal'  10 minutes but this lasted 45 minutes and literally beat the sea flat, which combined with the 28 knot wind it brought made for some great, albeit 'on the edge' sailing....well for me at least!

 

So what was yesterday all about:

 

Well it started in the night before, when I had to change downwind tacks for the first time in a while in confused seas. The autopilot wasn't happy on the new tack and I knew the spare tiller arm that I was snow using had too short a limit on the one tack. I couldn't get the longer tiller arm so had to accept this one, which had served me well all the well from the UK. Then I came up with this brainwave to get the seized correct,(longer) autopilot's tiller arm and 'just' fit it to the one I was now using. Well it seemed like a relatively simple task so I set out at first light yesterday morning to do it. 2 hrs later I have messed up the spare autopilot and have not managed to get the longer arm installed on a working one. Basically this means I had screwed up my spare autopilot, and now only have one! I was so mad with myself....as afterwards I saw what the issue was...not obvious at the time, but we all know hindsight hey!

 

So I took a while to deal with that and in the mean time the wind had changed direction a bit and I needed to gybe. Probably being a bit casual I released the genoa sheet fully to yank in the roller reefer.  Next thing the wind picked up more the boat got out of control, and the genoa ended up flapping around twirling itself into a horren«dous knot around the forestay. I must say I am even embarrassed telling you this as this has NEVER happened to me before. Anyway not such a big deal...so I thought...90 mins later and after a huge struggle I fixed all that. That was after watching a huge squall come through with me unable to reef the genoa, because the line had all run out!

 

I then looked at the mainsail and saw that the 3rd  to top batten had broken, and the end near the mast was sticking out 30cm preventing me from reefing further, and there was a threatening cloud approaching... Well, no option but to go up the mast and try and retrieve it. At least it was only two thirds of the way up. Finally got up and retrieved the one part of the batten to find it wasn't broken but had come apart at the connector. The connector was needed because the batten was too long for the aeroplane and so had to be cut in half.  Managed to reef and then the awaited cloud hit with 38 knots of wind... I ended up steering but can honestly say by this time I had started getting cramps in my forearms as I tugged hard on the tiller. Weakling I hear you say..... well the four hours I had just been through was like the toughest gym session you can imagine.  

 

As expected the leech side of the batten started coming out and in order to prevent any more related problems, I dropped the mainsail to retrieve it without damage. All this takes time and planning on ones own and with 25 knots of wind. 

 

Two newsletter's ago I spoke about chafe.... well today I had the 4th level batten chafe through its pocket end and 'poke out'! Once again mainsail down and I managed to do a 'quite clever' repair using the end of the batten I had earlier retrieved.  

 

I have lost confidence with the autopilot on the one tack and when there is strong wind and big sea. Well that was last night, so I needed up steering for 6 hrs, which actually was a lot of fun and very pleasant in the strong moonlit night. The moon was so bright I even went down to check if the solar panels were registering current...but no!!

 

While steering I had the final straw 'insult'...not quite a slap in the face, but a slap on the head..... A huge flying fish beat the last one's world record by this time coming out the water just where I was sitting steering smack me on the head, glancing off onto the mainsail and over the other side of the boat! I was literally stunned for a mini second! 

 

The above is a bit of detail, that may not make much sense to some of you, but it's just an overview of what really happened...inside the struggle, there were so many times when things went wrong because someone decided today wasn't my day.

 

Today I feel saw ALL over, just like I used to feel after a REAL hard rugby match.

 

That's about it for today....still feel a bit knackered, and this whole thing is about pacing oneself!

 

Cheers for now

 

Howard