Happy Friday.... day 15 - 31:23.919N 49:58.271W
Voyage of Wanderingstar
Ben Bonnick
Fri 27 Apr 2018 16:00
Missed blog update yesterday. This is why:
On Thursday morning when you may well have been eating your weetabix or driving to work or whatever, I would have gladly swapped places with you. In the early hours of Tuesday night I got caught in strong winds (45 knots gusting 55) and heavy rain. I had seen the depression on my weather fcst and on Tuesday morning it appeared to be weakening and dissipating. During the afternoon and without me realising it, it re-gained its status and deepened. Just after dark Tuesday night (about 8pm - 1am your time) I felt the winds pick up. I was already reefed so I put in my last reef and brought in extra front sail. I was heavily heeled over and was concerned that I might be knocked down but an extra large gust. At 11pm with the wind still picking up I decided to heave-to and forgot any thoughts of progressing. By 1am Wed (uk time 6am) the winds had picked up further and even though fully reefed and hove-to the wind was still pushing the boat over at 30-35 degrees. I decided to bring the mail sail in which meant going back out there. By 2am I had all sail in except for a small portion of front and was simply drifting.
At that point I was actually able to relax. There was no land within 1000 miles, Wandering Star was quite happy being pushed along by the wind with little if any strain on rigging. There was not too much swell at this stage and I had no fears of a knock down. I had a nip of rum laid on my bunk and listened to the wind howling and actually got a few hours kip. By morning it was a wet miserable day with big swell, but the wind had reduced. By 10am Thur having drifted over 25 miles back along hard fought miles of the previous day, I set about re-setitng the sails for the day. It took nearly 3 hours to rig them. Due to the stepped mast, every time the wind gusted the halyard got tangled around the steps and it was almost impossible to haul up the sail. Eventually by placing my foot on the halyard I was able to control it enough to finally raise the main. During a check of rigging I noticed that one of the stays holding the mast was becoming detached and its holding bracket was bent out of position. I did an emergency repair which I’m quite proud of. It also confirms that I was right to take the load off Wandering Star when I did.
Due to the wind direction the best I could manage yesterday was a NNW (yes bloody west). I spent the rest of the day sorting out the mess from the night before. Nelson's Dockyard Antigua now seems a long time ago.
Looking forward, there appears to be a high establishing itself for 400 miles right along the path of my planned route to Azores (hence little or no wind - typical). To avoid this I shall head north, then at about 37 degrees N head east again hopefully picking up some westerlies (see pic, sent separately black line is the revised route).
Some positives from the last few days:
- boat and skipper both well and fit and have established some robust storm tactics for the future
- from 14 day fcst (many thanks Steve) no more high winds expected from here to the Azores
- have a plan to go further north to avoid high.
- from Friday onwards the winds look favourable to that plan
- the sun has come out.
All for now
Ben