Noon Position: 45 26.0 N 040 30.0 W
Course: East Nor'east Speed 2knots
Wind: south, very light
Weather: Overcast, mild. Sea: slight, low swell
Day's Run: 115 miles
Not a bad day's run, most of it posted yesterday afternoon, in fact by
mid-afternoon we had a reef in the mainsail and the jib partially furled and
were still making a brisk 6 ½ knots - and the sun was shining, a perfect
afternoon on the ocean waves. But by midnight the wind had noticeably eased,
I unfurled the jib, we were still making better than five knots so I left
the reef in the mainsail overnight to keep things a little more comfortable.
At 6 am, during my morning scan of the horizon I saw a high aspect grey sail
off our port bow, it had to be a racing boat, I tightened sheets and came up
on to the wind, what there was of it, to have a closer look. We got close
enough for a gam, the racer's skipper poking his head out on deck a short
while after I had spotted him. The gam was short as obviously he was not
going to heave to to stop a bit of idle chatter, just long enough to
exchange destinations and fare each other well. He is bound for Newport,
competing in the OSTAR race. I caught his boat on video and will post a clip
to You Tube when I get the chance. It was an impressive little boat and
inspired me to trim the sails and squeeze a few more nano-knots out of the
old Sylph. But we're in it for the long haul, not some piddley little
trans-Atlantic Races for us, so we'll forgive ourselves if we aren't
straining every sinew and fibre to get the last ounce of speed out of Sylph,
rather we must conserve her and keep her going for as long as we can, we
have a long way to go yet and our budget is undoubtedly just a smidgen
tighter than an OSTAR boat.
And if you want the last word on the definition of a gam well you will need
to read Moby Dick, one of America's greatest novels.
It didn't take long for our young thoroughbred ocean companion to drop
astern, and we were once more surrounded by an unbroken horizon, and not
very long after an unmoving unbroken horizon, the wind abandoned us and left
Sylph wallowing on the small swell, the mainsail crashing and banging in its
usual fashion when there is insufficient wind to keep it full. This soon
started to drive me nuts and motivated me to climb the mast to sort out the
drifter halyard. I put some thought into the chafing problem, my first
solution, screwing a fairlead block to the masthead resulted in the loss of
one screwdriver over the side, not having an endless supply of tools on
board I sought an alternative. Solution Mk II was something a little more
temporary, using a nylon thimble as a fairlead and lashing it to the top of
the starboard cap shroud. Now the halyard is reeved, the drifter is up, the
mainsail and jib are down - no more slatting, there is just enough wind to
keep the drifter drawing, the wind vane steering, and old Sylph moving along
in roughly the right direction at a couple of knots.
Bob Cat
I must say it is warming up quite nicely, maybe my global cooling theory
needs some tweaking. I might just sleep on it for a bit. Zzzzzzz,
All is well.
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