Amazing Weather
Amazing Grace
John and Julie
Thu 3 Dec 2009 01:19
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Julie and Dan were chatting a few days ago and Dan
remarked on how good the weather had been. Julie replied that it had been
exactly as she had expected. Dan then asked why and Julie said "because we
have hundreds of people across the world praying for good weather and a safe
passage for us and the whole fleet!.
And so it has been. The weather has been
fantastic. The wind has been just enough to test us some of the time and
just enough to let us rest for the rest of the time. Having spent a fair
amount of time looking at the weather that other boats have experienced over the
years, I had expected 3 days of rough (F6-7 or more) conditions and at least one
day of calms. Of course, as I write we have about 6 days to go so there'
still time!! However the forecast is very good.
One of the benefits of the 'just right' amount of
wind has been that we have been able to fly our Parasailor for 1600 of the 1800
miles so far. We took it down the other night since the wind was due to
get up and the ride would have been 'invigorating' but would have prevented
anyone getting any rest. So down it came! Personally, I always
prefer to take it down in daylight as there are 5 lines to manage as well as the
'giant sausage' of the sail in its snuffer. Julie and I have developed
techniques and getting it up and down is usually 'no drama' as long as we don't
overlook anything. (As an aside, we've heard many horror stories about
Parasailors and spoken personally to many Parasailor users - there's a strange
coincidence here too - the people that have taken the time to learn how to use
it have no horror stories to tell and only laugh at the ones they hear
of!) That said, its not a sail to be taken lightly. Its very expensive and
huge into the bargain (Ours is over 1500 sq ft - its a bit intimidating having
that flapping in front of your nose when you snuff it but you soon get used
to it). However,treated well its very docile! I remember the first
time we took ours out - fortunately with Stuart Anderson of Seateach who sold it
to us. He showed us how to rig and launch and recover the sail as well as
how to trim it for different points of sail. We were pretty
intimidated - it was huge! However, we took it out for the first time
'solo' a few days later and after we finally sorted out the lines, we had a
grand sail up the Solent with it.
We have dubbed it the 'lazy cruisers' sail for good
reason - you can fly it in a far wider set of conditions than any other sail I
know. Its so flexible that you can set it and leave it alone for hours on
end except for a little trimming here and there to get the best from
it. Its very tempting to leave it too late when the wind is
getting up.We have heard stories of people flying it in up to 40kt. (Now that's
scary because we get over .5 wind speed with ours). People normally leave
it up for too long because they are having a great fast ride and they are also a
bit scared of handling it in high winds. As I have said, its not
impossible and once mastered, its pretty easy even double handed.
Anyway, back to our amazing weather. Its
great to have you all praying for our safe passage and its great to experience
answered prayer too! Please keep going! We're having a better
crossing than I could possibly imagine and barring a minor and temporary stering
problem yesterday, we are in very good shape.
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