Squalls and Squeaks
Rik
Tue 7 Nov 2023 16:30
Yesterday evening we carefully considered putting in the 3rd reef, we are already on the 2nd. Reefing the mainsail is basically reducing its size, putting in the 3rd reef would make the mainsail as small as it can be which would protect us from stronger winds, but would slow us down if the strong winds didn’t come. We checked three different weather forecasts and decided to continue as we were with the second reef and furling the headsail (reducing its size) as required as this set up was rated for the forecasted wind strengths. This worked well for us and gained us a few places in the rally overnight. At first light this morning we witnessed our first squall, a squall is a small but high energy weather system that contains rain and wind. The sea state increased and the wind picked up to a high of 36 knots and at one point Moose was surfing down the waves at twice her normal speed.
The left graph is the wind direction and the right is strength over the last 60 minutes.
However Moose handled it all well and half an hour later things were returning to normal. Now we are cruising along at our normal 7 knots, the sun is shining and the sea state although still quite high has eased a little.
The falling rain is part of the squall.
During the night we noticed a new squeak coming from the starboard bow, not wishing to go on deck in the dark we didn’t investigate. However when I returned to my cabin for an extra snooze, the squeak was amplified by the fibreglass deck and sleep was out of the question!! I later discovered the squeak was our preventer line running over a furling guide and not only was it annoying but it was wearing a channel in the guide. So we set about a fix, two soft shackles and a snatch block later, peace and quiet had been resumed ! We still have all the old squeaks of course.