Day 8 - Wednesday - April 14, 2010
UTC/Local: 1000 / 3:00 a.m. PDST
Latitude: 15 10.711 N
Longitude: 115 06.201 W
Conditions:
As I write this log, we are one week at sea :) and about 650 miles offshore from Puerto Vallarta, a little less that 1/4 of the way to the Marquesas. Now that we have a fairly constant wind (first three days out of PV was pitiful)we are making better time and averaging six knots per hour. The wind is blowing about 14 nautical miles per hour from the north east. We are on a course of 270 degrees heading due west with a reefed main, full jib and mizzen on a broad reach. The winds are coming from the northeast. I can't see the sea swell, but it is probably 6-9 feet and from the periodic strong swells on our starboard hull that rock us to port and back flogging the jib and activating the preventer on the main, the swell is coming from the north, north west. The stars are twinkling in a very black sky. I've been on watch about an hour. Garyn and Russ are sleeping.
We have had a long day after an eventful early morning as reported in update 7. When the sun finally rose and everyone was up, we adjusted our course and sails. In so doing examined all the stress and chaffing points on the boat. The screws in our boom to mast gooseneck were working their way loose and stripped the threads. Not good, but not unexpected given all of the tension and torque from wind and rocking swell. We needed to repair this right away.
We turned on the motor, and lowered all of the sails with the exception of the cutter and turned the boat to a course of 180 to run with the swell so that Garyn and Russ could go forward on the desk and work on the mast and boom without being slammed from one side to the other. You may have noticed our meanderings on SPOT. I held the southern course keeping rollers from a confused sea on the stern quarter for two hours while Russ and Garyn dug through the spare parts putting together a combination of things that would work. The upper saloon looked like mission control for the repair of Apollo 13. With assembled hose clamps, plumbers' strapping, and a thin bicycle locking cable with rubber/plastic sheathing, Russ and Garyn clamped, wrapped, and lashed the gooseneck to the mast.
At one point during the repair job, the lazy jib sheet dipped down into the opened galley hatch looping around the tea kettle handle and lifting it with a roll and then dropping it so that it fell to the floor knocking over the bottle of powdered coffee creamer on its way down making a pasty white mess all over the floor. Garyn discovered this while I was at the helm and cleaned everything up. Those lines take on a life of their own. The first day we flew the gennaker, Garyn asked me to close the aft head port as the sheet was catching. He noticed that my silk flower arrangement sans the blue bottle it was in was dangling from the sheet. The sheet had snaked into the head porthole, nagged the bottle and tossed it into the sea. I was able to save the silk flowers.
By 1:00 p.m. the repair was complete and Apollo rounded the back side of the moon. main was back up and we got back on our rocky rolly course. We were tired and hungry. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the galley, triaging vegetables, shifting things around in the refrigerator, and making a huge pot of of spicey Mexican turkey soup. We took turns cat napping, holding watch, listening to the Fountain Head, and doing laundry.
No dominoes tonight. We were all sleep deprived. I went to bed in the lower saloon by 8:00 p.m.. Russ was on watch and Garyn wasn't ready to go to bed. He was finally beginning to feel much better after his odd episode earlier in the morning and was on his computer. We have now started Day 9 and so far,
All is Well on Worrall wind
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