Atlantic Crossing day 19 Oh Squally Squally night..
The cross
seas are annoying and very tiring. SeaWalk has been side swept five time The
impact of a huge roller on the side of SeaWalk is so great that the steering
doesn’t cope anymore and she loses steerage. Which means she turns her head into
the wind.
With the
Jib and
We tried
different setting of sail but it just made no difference. So the watch was stuck
to the wheel for most of the day. Sailing watches are mostly single-handed (when
Yannick is on watch I try to catch up on sleep and vice versa) aboard SeaWalk.
Luckily Isabelle can jump in if nature calls but she is also very busy with the
kids and also has slight sleep deprivation as a result of it. Her nights are
also short but she is in no position to sleep extra during the day. Of course
her mind is set to everything that goes on at night. Any reefing, gibing or
setting sail wakes her up and from time to time she will come into the cockpit
to ask whether everything is okay. Reassuring for us to have an extra pair of
hands but not good for getting a good nights rest.
If the
cross sea wasn’t bad enough, here come the squalls. And not just one, no for two
days on end a steady procession of squalls are coming our way. Some are small
but some aren’t. For the non sailors a squall is nothing but a big rain cloud.
Sometimes it just rains, sometimes there is a little extra wind and sometimes in
the front of the cloud there are gale force winds. And when it rains it usually
is a tropical downpour.
Around
21:00h last evening we spotted a huge,
Not a
moment too soon. As soon as we secured the
Even so,
big winds for sure. Wow. The whole world around us changed – The wind swept up
the seas, the rain flattened it out. All around us the sea and sky looked the
same dark green/greyish colour. I wouldn’t like to get caught in that wind with
the
Yannick
and Isabelle can’t do it single handed. So we reefed down for the night running
on the Jib (which is on a furler and easy to roll in single-handed). The Jib is
great but not down wind. She’s just too small for the job so the speed was gone.
But with
sleep at a premium, especially for me, we definitely needed to keep the boat
underpowered.