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August 22 - A Ripping Good Sail, or, Anybody NOAA good forecaster???
August 22 - A Ripping Good Sail, or, Anybody NOAA good
forecaster??? We left you as I took over the dawn patrol, what we call the shift for the one who gets to see the dawn. I was able, eventually, to catch a relay on the Maritime Mobile Net on the Ham radio, but signals are horrible in general, it seems What little I heard of the net traffic control suggested there were no checkins. As this is usually a very active net, that would mean that not only were others not hearing him, but if they were talking, he couldn't hear them - certainly, I couldn't... Sailing started extremely slowly, with winds just a zephyr. All the canvas out, and still we crept along, well out to sea. Then, a breeze. Hooray. More than 3 knots on the meter! Oops. More breeze. But right on our nose. Staysail doesn't seem very effective at that angle, so we put it away. Up goes the speed on the knotlog. Hooray! Lydia goes to bed, and I take over. All the forecasts, not only all the ones from NOAA and all the other sources such as weather underground, virtual bouy and bouyweather that I'd pulled down on our internet connections right up until just before we left, and on the radio as we went along, were for winds to be in the 10-15 knot range, dying later. Some inland thunderstorm warnings were heard over the weather channel, but hundreds of miles away (and inland). No comment about the water parts of the coverage area (other than the Chesapeake, and Delaware Bays, with 1 foot waves), other than a chance of rain. Sounds like a really nice sail. And, initially, it was. The wind shifted altogether, requiring a tack in toward shore, but it was very short-lived, turning around nearly completely, and making another tack required. That should have given me a clue. When I tacked, the lazy sheet fouled on the Porta-Bote (our folding dinghy), stowed on the rail. I saw that there was some rain in the radar, so hurried and I put on my harness and clipped in and not only unfouled, so we could tack and keep going, but took the time and reattached the dinghy and the rowing sculls (10' carbon fiber oars) I have for that boat. Fortunately, this wind change and tack was such that it put us right on our course on a rather close reach, and the breeze made it into double digits, which produced a nice speed. If this keeps up, we'll make Sandy Hook by Tuesday evening, a quick trip, indeed. Hm. Now it's picking up, again. No problem. Getting up to 15 knots with our 110% genoa and full main will be a very nice sail. Oops. Now it's raining. Waves are building. Still no problem; Flying Pig muscles through all of them, if a bit squirrelly, what with the angle of the waves. But wait. It gets better. Now it's thunderstorms, and the wind continues to build. No problem - this sail configuration can easily take20 knots, and if it gets over 15, it will be just for a tiny while, all the forecasts say. I'm in my foulies and comfortable. It's just a squall, the wind will die down completely, and we'll be stuck in the doldrums again. Nice try. Think, instead, that it keeps going up. The gusts reach over 20. Then the steady winds get over 25. Hm. Time to shorten sail. Pull in the genoa on the furler, only, because it's so godawful out there, with waves on the order of 8-10 feet and confused, that Lydia refuses to let me go take in a reef on the main. She goes back to bed and I continue on main alone. Wind continues to build, waves, too, and the main isn't very effective at these speeds and angle of sail. My friend Captain Joe would call this a 5-ticket ride. We got our money's worth, but, while I was ok, I knew that this motion was misery for Lydia, and I didn't see any end to it, as it just kept building. While it was exhilarating to see 7 and 8 on the knotlog, we were being beaten up. And, lest there be misunderstanding, Lydia was not seasick, having had not only the first patch, but a refresher before going down to sleep. She just wanted to get back on with her sleeping, as it was my watch. So, 30 miles past Cape May, I turned around in winds reaching for 30 knots and gusting well over, and headed for shelter to rest and let it blow itself out. Instead, it blew out the mainsail, with a rip the entire length of the foot just below the first reef. Fortunately, we'll be able to continue on a single reef, but it will be a nuisance to have to repair it, whether we do it with our machine, or have a sailmaker in the NY area do it for us. The 5-ticket ride has made the rigid inflatable dinghy look like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. This is a somewhat new product, from Walker Bay, and the rigid material doesn't allow the addition of, which would allow, well-spaced lifting points as would be the case in a fiberglass rigid inflatable. So, we use a lifting strap. Unfortunately for the dinghy, this strap puts pressure under the seats, and the bouncing and flailing, despite our having very tightly cross-strapped it, caused one of the dinghy seats to take flight, and the other to hang on by one attachment point. We'll have to figure out some other means of suspension, as this one clearly doesn't work. In the meantime, the remaining seat is off the dinghy and on the boat. So, we make it into Cape May and manage to anchor after our first attempt drags; one of the other boats there wound up reanchoring just as our first attempt failed, too, so I didn't feel so bad, especially since they were already anchored when we motored in. In 10 feet of water, with 100 feet of chain on the 55# Delta however, we're well stuck. In the harbor, it's still raining, but not torrentially, as it did offshore, and the wind is only 15-20, making for just a whoosh from the KISS, which had positively howled out on the Atlantic at 30-35 knots. The good news was that we were also getting 25-30 amps from it. However, I digress. Of course, cold and wet, and having had nothing to eat in the last 15 hours, the first thing I think of is a cup of coffee and a munchie. What? The water isn't coming out of the tap?? The pump's running. What? The forward, huge, tank, is empty?? Do we have a leak? Or, does the pump have a problem, and we just forgot how long it's been since we filled the water tank (Beaufort, a very long time ago, it feels like!)? That's my task for the afternoon, when I really wanted to get some sleep, having had none in about 30 hours. So, we lick our wounds, and while I tackle the problem areas and let more satellite pix come down, Lydia jumps in the dinghy (her "sports car") and goes exploring. For those who get her log, you know that resulted in her getting drunk in Norfolk. Who knows what adventures she'll find this time! (See below for resolution on these two.) Once the weather settles down (I have not yet explored that reality - and I've learned, more than once, not to trust NOAA, so I don't fully know how we'll determine that), we'll head back out, under single reef, to Sandy Hook. It should be a one-day sail, at a very leisurely pace, given that we looked like we'd arrive this evening when we were only opposite Ocean City, MD at 6PM when I checked in on the net. However, as I type, the wind is howling. I have little doubt that outside the harbor, it's still miserable, so, assuming we can address the water issue, we'll stay here for a while. Meanwhile, in Coinjock, I got the right belts for the engine, and did the alignment when I put it on. So far, so good, with only the tiniest adjustment in the first 40 or so hours of running, and the pulleys look straight, still (you could easily see the misalignment in it previously). Other misadventures include a flaky water temperature unit, some annoying tiny leak, still, in the raw-water pump area causing dripping into the engine catch-pan, and the very weird behavior of the inverter, which seems to not only require a strangely large load to operate, but an occasional reboot (switch off and back on - D'ya suppose Microsoft made it??) in order to function. However, it's how I'm online right now, so at least it's working to that degree. All other systems seem in good order, so our normal (boats are constant maintenance, and things wear out, which, despite a clean bill of health from the last patch occasioned from our wreck, may be the problem here, not just excessive wind), ongoing adventures will surely included some form or maintenance or replacements. As I write this, the weather reports suggest a wind speed and direction which would permit a reasonable sail up tomorrow, so we'll continue to monitor the forecast, and likely will be gone and out of touch again, assuming it stays good. However, it's only about a day's sail (28 or so hours from the inside of the Cape May Harbor to inside of Sandy Hook), so we won't be gone long... Epilogue: Both water tanks are empty. Last night we dinghy'd in and filled the 6-gallon jug for washing, and showered in the local marina facility. Lydia had thought that someone turned off her water in Beaufort because she was overflowing, but it seems that it was only because she wasn't standing there watching it. So, we got only a partial tank. We'll fuel and water before the end of the day, which will resolve that issue. When Lydia went ashore and I caught up on the weather and other chores, as usual, Lydia immediately befriended the first person she saw, who, in this case, was feeding some cats outside a restaurant. Well, kittens... The short story is that the restaurant has become a dropoff point for the locals, it seems, because the person and her mother were very successful in placing them in new homes. The most recent dropoff was a mother and a couple of kittens. Some sort of domestic problem, they were house, not feral cat/kitties, but the kittens had clearly been neglected and were teacup sized about a week ago. However, this one (well, both, but this is the one which came back with Lydia) has responded wonderfully to treatment. She's also extremely affectionate, and it took 24 hours for her to stop purring nonstop, she was so pleased to have someone to look after her, and not have to be out in the very cold wind and rain. A pet aboard isn't appropriate for umpteen reasons, but Lydia is now trying to rationalize/come to grips with how it might work to keep her. We have yet to see a flea, and she doesn't scratch, but she's not been to a vet as far as the sponsor was aware. Her coat is extraordinarily sleek, perhaps from all the petting, but is clearly healthy. Not the first bit of white on her... So, we'll be putting out feelers for how other cruisers have managed leaving the boat for periods of time, international travel and other niceties of having pets aboard in other than home waters. The excitement never stops. L8R Skip Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and/or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it however." (and) "There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts." (Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah) |
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