Back at sea! We have begun the final long crossing of our circumnavigation and it is a pleasant feeling. The pleasant feeling is magnified because we are sailing again after a full day of motoring. We left Brazil with fine winds and seas yesterday around noon and did 100 nautical miles in our first twelve hours, which is a great pace. Then the wind died and we turned on the engines and did 150 miles in the next 24 hours, which is not such a great pace. These light winds were supposed to continue for the next two days but we received a reprieve about an hour ago. I noticed a breezier breeze and put the starboard engine in neutral and, sure enough, our speed stayed about the same so I turned off the engine and we’ve been averaging about 7 knots ever since.
For those of you that don’t spend much time on boats, here’s what happens when there isn’t wind. We turn on one engine (in rare cases we use both) and leave the sails up. The additional propulsion of the engines gives us additional wind. This new wind, coupled with the true wind, gives us “apparent wind” and helps fill our sails. If the true wind is low, when we stop our engines, the apparent wind decreases and the boat slows way down. But if there is sufficient true wind, the boat will move forward under sail power at roughly the same speed as with the engine and create additional wind again. As a test, we just put the engine in neutral and see what happens. If the boat maintains her speed, we turn off the engine and sail. It’s always a huge relief to have the engines off. You kind of get used to the sound droning in the background but when it’s off, it’s so delightful.
This last leg to Grenada, with an optional stopover at Devil’s Island in French Guiana, is a racing leg. As strange as it might sound, there is a strategy around using engines in this sailing race. Charm is in the category with other catamarans but catamarans, like people, come in all different shapes and sizes. Much like in other sports, sailing has a way of handicapping the boats to try to level the playing field. Since the World ARC is a friendly rally, the handicaps are largely dependent on the owners giving good information rather than on professional assessments of the boats. As a former racer, Joe knows all about “good information” given by owners. Charm is considered a “performance” catamaran which means we have a very difficult handicap – the assumption is that we will go fast and place ahead of all the other catamarans. In order to win, we have to beat most of the other boats by a significant margin. In some cases, due to the handicaps, it is actually impossible for us to win. The longer the race and the higher the wind, the better our chances.
Here’s where the motoring comes in. All boats have to record the time they spend motoring with their engines on and in gear. If you just turn your engine on to charge the batteries and leave it in neutral, the time doesn’t count against you. The World ARC determines some sort of multiplier between 1 and 2 to use as a motoring “penalty.” They multiply this by the number of hours you motored and add it on to your total time. I don’t know how they decide on the multiplier – I think they make it up after all the boats come in and they know what the weather was like. This, plus the handicap, seems like it should level the playing field. It doesn’t always work.
Take this moment in time, for example. In the first 12 hours of the race, all of the boats had enough wind to sail. Charm was moving along at an average speed of 8.3 knots. The other boats were probably averaging 6 knots. We passed all the boats in the fleet (it was a “self-starting” race so we all crossed the start line at different times) and were well ahead of them when the wind died.
At that point, I assume everyone turned on their engines and motor-sailed. Today, while motoring with our sails up, EQ2 slowly gained ground on us. As I type, they are slowly passing us. We are sailing at around 7 knots while they are motor-sailing at 7.5 knots or so. If this continued for the whole race, with us sailing (not motoring) and them motor-sailing, we would lose because the motoring penalty they received would be insufficient to make up the difference in our handicap. If we really wanted to win, we probably should motor whenever the other boats are motoring to give our sails an additional boost but that seems like a ridiculous thing to do in a sailing race.
In addition to all of these complications, there is one brand of catamaran that advertises itself as “the winningest boat in the ARC” or something like that. It’s a very popular brand that is known to be quite comfortable but also quite slow. The ARC’s handicap/motoring formula seems uniquely suited to benefit this particular brand of boat. These boats win so often and in such unusual situations that many question if the ARC is sponsored by them.
I’m explaining all this because sometimes people watch the ARC tracker and see us way out in front and then the results come in and we don’t come in first place and they wonder why (and often, so do we). Still, this is the kind of race in which Charm excels. Long distance with good wind forecast for the rest of the trip (after we make it through the doldrums). If we stop in Devil’s Island, we record our time when we cross an invisible line in the sea and start our racing clock again when we cross another invisible line on leaving. Yet another way to distort the results – as you can see, the “race” really is an artificial construct in many ways.
Much better to talk about other, more important things. Like kitchen moths, sweaty girls and ants. I am happy to report there has been progress on all fronts. I haven’t seen a kitchen moth or signs of webbing for several weeks now.
Since we have no guests or crew on this leg, I let Cobin move into the guest room where it is cooler. The girls were squabbling and complaining about having to sleep together so I told Marin she could move into Cobin’s room. This made Marin happy but Tully didn’t want to be by herself. Cobin has bunk beds so both girls moved in. While they’re still together, they seem happy in a new space with separate beds. Also, they are not quite as sweaty because the light wind conditions have allowed us to keep more windows open on the boat. With calm seas and no waves splashing, the berths in the bow are considerably cooler.
I think I have vanquished the tiny ants as I haven’t seen them in a while. The bigger ants still march around in lines in their usual spots and we spray them every time we see them so one day we will conquer them too. I also have a small battle with some mold growing on the caulk lines in the bathroom but a small amount of bleach each week has allowed me to keep it from conquering new territory. Who knew there was so much violence and death in daily boat life?
Speaking of violence and death, many of the other boats have been catching fish on a regular basis. Chao Lay has caught 3 – 4 fish on this leg alone and Sweet Dream reported that they brought in a 20-lb tuna-like fish. Our interest in fishing goes in fits and starts. It’s always fun to catch something but unpleasant to kill the fish and a lot of work to clean and store them. Joe occasionally puts out the line which gives us the potential excitement of a catch but we almost never get a bite so it works out just fine. We feel like we’re participating but aren’t too disappointed when we don’t catch anything. Plus, the other boats will usually share their catches when we get to the next stop.
I need to go make the menu for the passage. I told the kids that they would need to plan and cook one meal on this trip and Cobin is anxious to know when he gets to make his. He was at the store with me and was very excited to see they had plant-based burgers in the frozen food section. I found this odd because they don’t have peanut butter, which we have found in every other location in the world, but they do have plant-based burgers in a country known for its delicious meat. Also odd that Cobin, our most devout meat eater, was excited about this. He learned about them in a podcast or something and told me that even people like him couldn’t tell the difference. Then he started telling me that if we switched to plant-based meat, we could quit cutting down the Amazon rain forests and be better global citizens. So many surprises coming from this child lately! He plans to let the girls eat the (hopefully) delicious burgers and then will give them the big reveal.
The only complicating factor is that we gave some things up for Lent. Joe and I grew up Catholic but we haven’t really raised our children in any of the Catholic traditions. Since we were in Brazil for Carnaval, I explained Lent to the kids and asked if they wanted to participate. They all seemed intrigued so I dusted off my Catholicism and we have embraced Lent this year. I even tried to find a church for Ash Wednesday but no luck. The church was right by the marina but did not appear to be open for business on Wednesday.
Marin wanted to give up words (Cobin still regrets that she didn’t) and Tully thought it was funny to tell me on a daily basis that she was giving up Charm School. In the end, Cobin and I gave up salt, Marin gave up red meat except on Sundays, and Tully gave up salt on Sundays and red meat on the other days. Except neither girl really knew what “red meat” meant until I explained it to them when I was trying to convince them it was OK to eat the pork loin I cooked for dinner. Then Marin pointed out that bacon had a reddish color and Tully claimed she gave up all meat so I’m not sure what they will be willing to eat. To be safe, I will put Cobin on the menu for Sunday so that he has the best possible chance of the girls eating his meal.
Winds have continued to be steady and it is delightfully cool this evening. During the day it is quite hot unless, like this afternoon, we get cloud cover with a few squalls. Tomorrow we start school again with a new science unit on physics!
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