Reefs in the Reefs
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 15 Oct 2010 23:07
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Saturday 16 October 0705 Local 2105 Friday 15th
UTC
20:01.52S 148:40.25E
This morning I had a delicious, juicy Force Seven
for breakfast washed down with a cool turquoise dunking of Australian seawater
right over me at the helm.
I had set my alarm for 0400 having worked out a
detailed passage plan and route. This was a bonus as I had expected to have
to get up at 0200. However, I set the time but did not switch the bloomin'
thing on, so I did not wake up till 0420 and slightly groggily I went to haul
the anchor. The wind and tide were playing tricks with my still sleepy head.
There must have been 50 boats in Nara bay, a long narrow inlet on the south
of Hook Island, Whitsundays, this morning. Most had on anchor lights..... I
had to call Trish up to go forward with the spot light lest I drag an
Aussie boat with me to Cairns.
Anyway outside the channel at 0500 I got the
full main and jib up. There was a strong
wind warning in place..... the wind freshened and freshened to a lovely force
seven - right on the beam. We went charging up to 9 .5 knots laying our course
up inside the Great Barrier Reef to Cairns. However the whole of the leeward
side deck and rail was constantly awash.
I took a trip below to see how my hardy crew was
doing. Trish was back in bed - chin hooked over the windward side of the
bed hands outstretched holding the "uphill" fiddle (a fiddle is a built in
handrail) and the leeward, "downhill" fiddle was Trish's "floor". This can
sometimes be taken as a sign to reef.....
So, overwhelmed with pity for Trish's
plight, I reefed. The speed dropped to eight knots, but this took some
of the strain off Trish's feet and her velcro suit and mattress could just about
hold her to the bed. (maybe this really could be designed and patented .........
ok, maybe not)
However it wasn't long before my pity was
overwhelmed by my desire for speed. My completely, perfectly honed, finely tuned
inability to go anything less than flat out meant that I was constantly adding
canvas and tweaking and trimming the sails anytime there was even a hint of
a few knot drop in the wind.
All this was
excellent until I decided to write a wee blog and when I went to switch on the
220V for the computer I accidentally switched OFF the navigation instruments
instead. All hell broke loose, boat rounding up, almost tacking, every alarm in
the ship attempting a high pitched poor effort at Mike Oldfield's "Tubular
Bells" and of course (and off course with the autopilot having
let go) all my finely balanced sail plan was completely pear
shaped.
That all took about half an hour to sort out. When
sail plan changes are made or course changes in decent breeze it always takes a
bit of time to get the boat balance to settle down. Depending on the wind
strength and direction one might ease or harden the sheets first then
alter course or sometimes vice versa. Ideally of course if I am not alone
then both could be done simultaneously. That then will lead inevitably to a
different speed which will change the apparent wind which then in turn will
require some fine tuning of the sail trim. The same goes for taking out or
putting in a reef.
Anyway got to go right now, the right jhand side of
my keyboard is trailing in the water again!
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