BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

wrote:
... but it's the quality of the sailor that
can drive them effectively. The fact that you HAD a third reef to go
to sets you apart (is that Catalina standard issue? if so, I am
impressed!), as is your willingness to run off the wind and heave to.
....
Who today knows how to heave to their boat and when?

No, we had the third reef installed in the main as part of preparing for
that trip (our most adventurous to date). I am a big proponent of
being prepared and minimising the strain on the vessel when things start
to pick up. In my experiance, reefing early has no down side. It not
only eases the stress on everything (especialy the humans), but by
letting the boat sail more upright, you actually go faster than when
heeling waaaay over. Besides, if you mis-read the trend, it's real easy
to shake the reef out again.

The night I wrote about was exciting, but not really scary at all as we
had the boat under complete control at all times and lots of reserve
left before we would be "pushing the edge". I've read several times
about waves sounding like freight trains as they approached you, but
this was the first time I had ever experianced it. Kinda cool really.

The only time I was at all nervous on the trip was a night several weeks
earlier when we were heading south past Pt. Conception in 20-25 kt winds
and 6'-7' square waves off the stb quarter. Two mistakes of mine
combined to make things interesting. The first was that I did not check
the battery state, just assumed that since I had been motoring for a few
hours that they were fully charged (it turned out that my alternator
wasn't charging them). This resulted in both batteries being COMPLETELY
dead - about 2am, I had to turn off the (by now weak) nav lights in
order to make the light on the compass bright enough to read it. The
second mistake was I had decided to cross Pt. Conceptin 10-12 miles
offshore in an attempt to miss the worst of the notorious wave action.
Unfortunately, as a result we were dodging freighters all night w/out
the benifit of radar or nav light. To make matters worse, I developed a
severe case of vertigo and every time I lifted my eyes from the compass,
I would unintentionally start turning the boat. I had to calls the boys
up into the cockpit all night to keep an eye out for freighters.

Never forget, as long as no one is hurt, it's an "adventure".

Fair winds - Dan