Unconditional - Re: ARC+ Leg2, Day 13: 80% to St Lucia + a TWING

This afternoon, we crossed the 400nm mark from St Lucia, and the longest continuous that we have ever been at sea. Yesterday afternoon with only 500nm to reach St. Lucia, we inserted Peter, Paul & Mary (folk singers from antiquity {the ‘60’s}) Greatest Hits into the boat’s AV system. Turning up the volume, we sang along to"500-Miles"... "Lord, I’m ONE; Lord, I’m TWO; Lord I’m THREE; Lord I’m FOUR; Lord, I am FIVE hundred miles from my home. Five hundred miles, five hundred miles...” It seemed appropriate.

Unfortunately, the weather has not filled in as I had hoped for, and in falling one position the other top 35-boats appear to be travelling equal or faster than we are with with our dual headsail configuration, WHY IS THAT!? Sea Mist2 is probably flying that same configuration. Well downwind light air, Unconditional does not have as much canvas out there as our Yankee headsails are really high-cut genoas, so we give 20% relative sail area away to boats with full cut genoas. Also our A-symmetrical cannot be flown dead downwind as a full symmetrical can, ala nearby 60’ Class 1A Canadian boat Laumare.
We are smart people; what should we do? We poled out the A-symm which allows it to become a small symmetrical – sort of a mini-symmetrical. It is “mini” because the basic design of any A-symm, like the Yankee has a high-cut clew, and is smaller than a symetrical sail. Additionally, the A-symm does not have the broad shoulders like the ‘Whomper’ in the movie Wind. As the wind is not dead behind us at the moment, we pull out the headsail and use a ‘twing’ to keep the A-Symm sheet from chaffing on the underside if the boom. A twing is essentially a block, usually a snatch block, on a line from amidships that the sheet runs through. Miss Tiggy, docked next to us in Mindelo, looked to have a rigged twing, although I didn’t understand its purpose at the time.
Our speed definitely improved, but more wind would surely help. As we are primarily a CRUISING boat, those high-cut sails normally offer real ease of sailing advantages to us.

ETA has dropped to Friday evening or Saturday morning – give us WIND!

Malfunctions: ZERO, again!

I know, I know, my wife, The Admiral, would be writing a less techie blog, however she is busy READING her Kindle; and this stuff doesn’t excite her – imagine that!


Tom Hughes