8º 06.082s 136º 28.182w
Sun May 05 2019
Let’s
address a few of those fun facts. We’ll start with where we thought we’d sleep
best under passage, versus the reality we encountered.
All
the big boat sailing Isabel and I have done for pay has found us in a berth
well forward of the mast. Funnily enough the ventilation up there is terrible
so if there’s enough fuel on board to run the generator (and hence the central
air conditioning) it gets hot and stuffy. As little fans are unsightly to
extremely wealthy people, those big boats are either poorly equipped with such,
or not equipped at all. Well, JollyDogs doesn’t sport either a generator or an
airconditioner, so we installed some great little fans that blow on us while in
our bunks, and Isabel has one in the galley. They move a surprising amount of
air, they’re easy on electricity, and if mounted correctly they’re pretty quiet
for the work they’re doing. I’ve also found that sticking one’s finger in the
spinning blades only hurts for a little while.
It
was so kind of Thad to come with us on this voyage that we gave him what we
believed would be the choice sea birth. That’s in the starboard stern, a ¾
berth aligned with the longitudinal axis of the boat. We figured that since
Captain Ian always slept in the stern berth on the superyachts while we were on
passage, that’s gotta be the hot ticket. Certainly it’s the place to be if
we’re pushing into seas, as up forward where we sleep a short steep sea will
about toss you out of the bunk.
Well,
any sane cruiser does their best to limit or eliminate the requirement to sail
upwind. Can’t always do it, but at least on this trip we’ve almost entirely
avoided seas forward of the beam, and we’ve only been close hauled for a few
hours. We have mostly had seas on the port beam midships or aft, and
occasionally dead astern. As I noted previously, beam seas cause us to roll at
a rather high frequency associated with the passage of the wave peaks from ama
to ama. It’s important to note that the master cabin bunk is aligned 90 degrees
to the longitudinal axis of JollyDogs, i.e. we sleep sideways compared to Thad.
Wups, here we go . . . that reminds me of a little story.
Back
in my skydiving instructor days my flight instructor Chas came out to the drop
zone one day drinking a crawfish daquiri. We were near New Orleans, where at
least back then there were drive-in daquiri stands. Can you believe that?
Anyway, I asked him what it tasted like. He replied that it certainly didn’t
taste like crawfish, but if you drank three of them you’d be walking sideways.
I
guess you had to be there. Anyway, back to the bunk alignment and ventilation
discovery. It turns out (no real surprise here) that anytime the boat gets
rolled, if you’re lying parallel to the longitudinal axis you get rolled too.
Poor Thad has been flopping back and forth for about 19 days now while Isabel
and I have been completely comfortable up forward. Isabel and I sailed across
the Bay of Biscayne with Ian and Nicola on their Bowman 40 years ago and they
had put us in the aft berth, which we thought was very kind of them. However,
it was a dead downwind sail so we were wing and wing with the big genoa and
main, and that boat slowly rolled back and forth at its natural frequency for
about 40 hours. Isabel and I didn’t get much sleep, and ended up wedging
pillows around ourselves to stop our bodies doing 360’s. So the lesson for this
passage has been: we’re cruising, so by definition we’re avoiding pushing into
seas and we’re getting beam seas for almost the entire duration of the trip, so
sleeping sideways is the hot ticket!
As
Isabel and I have no shame or scruples, we sleep with our cabin door open, but
due to the boat layout we’re still out of sight in our bunk unless someone
actually comes into our cabin. Thad didn’t get that deal, and he does like his
privacy so he tends to sleep with his cabin door shut. Can’t say as I blame
him, since anytime we go down the companionway to make a cuppa or get a snack
we pass by his cabin door and it’s impossible to avoid looking in there. I
suppose he doesn’t want us to see him drooling like Pavlov’s dog or perhaps
something even more disturbing. . .
Our
cabin also has a lot more air volume than Thad’s so our body heat doesn’t warm
the air as much. It’s a basic thermodynamic thing. We do have a couple of
overhead hatches, but we took to installing the screens with tin foil above to
block the thermal input from solar radiation, so it’s actually been reasonably
cool up there. Thad’s a big guy so he contributes a lot of heat to his
surroundings. His cabin is small, and with the door closed he really heats that
place up. Unfortunately he’s also sleeping on top of the starboard diesel and
the watermaker is installed in that cabin closet. We’ve done our best to avoid
running either device while he’s in there asleep, but the latent heat of that
machinery lasts for hours and keeps the cabin overly warm.
So
even though our intentions were good, Thad got screwed.
We
had discussed turning the dining table / settee into a sea birth as it’s
designed for that and we have the cushions, but then someone would be sleeping
in the area of most light and highest activity. Not a restful combination. Add
to that the impulsive inputs through the dining table support when the waves
impact the underbelly just right, and it would result in an extremely uncomfortable
location. We never went there, so I guess we got that part right.
So
altogether Isabel and I have slept really well on this trip except for when we
had forward quartering seas that created big lumps. We’re often in the bunk at
the same time, and we haven’t been rolling back and forth at one another. Well,
at least not unintentionally. Thad has gotten a bit of a raw deal, but even he
thought it was a great idea when we started, and he still likes it better than
the idea of sleeping in the saloon.
Remember,
crew rest is critical! We need to be alert and able to react quickly when
untoward things arise, not feel groggy and foggy.
Tune
in later today when we’ll talk about autopilots and sail plans!
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