Wednesday has been an interesting day, mainly in good ways. Our first success was with the watermaker. When we first tried it after John’s repair and reinstallation on Tuesday I didn’t switch the generator to power the sockets, leaving it just to run the watermaker directly. The batteries were low so I switched it to boat as well; the watermaker promptly went on strike. It looks as though the extra load of the battery charger and immersion heater load the generator a bit too much. Previously we had found an electric kettle caused it to stop. (Underway we normally use gas.) Today we ran the watermaker without switching the boat circuit on, eureka! It ran faultlessly for over three hours, filling our tanks to capacity. John is still keen to obtain a replacement lift pump, but only to keep it as a spare.
Q, aka Horace the Hydrovane, steered us for about 42 hours, only needing help three times. If a wave knocked the bow off course just as a gust arrived the boat tried to round up to wind, bringing the wind forward and causing us to accelerate in the wrong direction. Q had difficulty getting back in control. The wind had veered, i.e. changed direction clockwise and, as we didn’t want to head north, we decided to alter the sails. Sailing with the wind nearly straight behind requires care. First of all we engaged the autopilot, let the mainsail out further on starboard, tightened the preventer, installed the pole on port side, fed the port genoa sheet into the snatch block, rerouted the sheet aft to a block on the quarter then back to a big cockpit winch, gybed the genoa, rolled it away to first reef so that it set nicely. Bingo, we can now sail downwind, using the autopilot in vane mode so it follows the wind not a compass course. I’ve gone into this much detail because within an hour and a half the wind had backed (anticlockwise) and we were heading towards Brazil! We had to gybe the rig, i.e. swap both sails to the other side. The main difference this time was that we decided it would be least complicated if we rolled the genoa away
first. I’m sure any racers out there are wincing at our tactics. Racing boats usually have a strong crew, we have just two senior citizens who sail conservatively.
I’ve used the word gybe which probably sounds like a foreign language to non-sailor; it just means moving the sails from one side to the other with the wind coming from behind. You need to be very careful to avoid the
foresail wrapping itself around the forestay and ensure that the mainsail can’t suddenly pull the boom from one side to the other. If a gybe happens accidentally it can severely damage the rigging, not to mention anyone who
happens to be in the way, which is why we always fit a preventer if we are running downwind.
We are making progress towards St Lucia, only another 1618 miles to go (0800, 5th December). I’m looking forward to the steak and bubbly to celebrate the halfway point at a nominal 1375 miles to go! I’d hoped for Wednesday or Thursday but now it looks more like Saturday. Dinner was Thai red chicken curry; I might have been a little generous with the red curry paste…
Joyce