Being comfortable at sea

1º 38.627s 126º 25.438w

Wed May 01 2019

Isabel’s dad always emphasized comfort when sailing or seeking a protected anchorage. At the time I didn’t quite get it. He had a Maxi 38’ monohull, a nice mid-cockpit boat with in-mast furling, big master cabin aft, and a decent V-berth where we slept when we came to visit. Great marinized version of an RV, but in a rolly anchorage it wasn’t fun, and Isabel’s mom wasn’t happy. Best to keep Sue happy - best to seek a well protected, comfortable anchorage AND to avoid sailing in messy conditions.

A couple days ago, Thad, Isabel and I were getting really tired of the salt water spray, the sneakers that would occasionally nail us even in our well protected cockpit, the irregular and large swells on the port beam that were rolling us and making moving around difficult. It was sticky and stuffy with the hatches all closed. We mused that while there might be a few folks who were envying our Pacific passage adventure, if they could be here now they’d think it sucks. We certainly did.

Fortunately that day passed, the seas mellowed, the wind came round a bit, and yesterday was an absolutely spectacular day of sailing. Feeling chuff about our equatorial crossing, we had a great time and the misery of the previous day faded from memory.

There are points of sail where JollyDogs is happier than others. A lot of it has to do with the seas; whether we’re pushing into them, whether it’s a short period or long period swell, whether choppy wind waves are building on a freshening breeze, whether we’re close hauled or deep downwind.

I just rolled up the screecher, hardened up the main and fired up the port diesel. It’s just about midnight and my patience is running thin with flukey wind that can’t make up its mind regarding how hard to blow and from which direction, on top of beam seas that roll us every few seconds. We’ve been sailing deep downwind with the main way out and the screecher bulging, and the rolling action was beginning to beat the crap out of the sails. Given the wind conditions our VMG (velocity made good to the waypoint) was getting below 3 knots, my own personal threshold of pain, as the best we could point was about 20 degrees off course and keep the sails filled.

Well, sails aren’t cheap and we’ve got a little diesel to spare. Now we’re laying the course, the screecher is furled, the main ain’t flappin’ and the seas are aft of the port beam. We don’t really care for the noise of the diesel, but by golly it’s now comfortable. Thad and Isabel should be able to sleep, and that’s imporant too.

Thad and I will launch the Parasailor at dawn tomorrow and we’ll be able to point directly down the course line to our next waypoint. The seas will be aft. We’ll put the autopilot on wind mode and let the Parasailor look after itself. Low stress sailing. Our kind of sailing. We’re not racing out here, we’re cruising.