8º 06.082s 136º 28.182w
Sun May 05 2019
Isabel
and I moved aboard JollyDogs in June of 2014. Before we began this passage we
had at least 10,000 miles sailing her, including around 2000 bluewater passage
miles. Together had done an offshore passage from Ensenada, MX just South of
San Diego direct to Banderas Bay, then quite a few crossings in the Sea of
Cortez. Long Pacific swells and short steep seas, everything from on the stern
to on the bow, and steady winds up to about 28 knots with maybe a 5 knot gust
spread. Seems like we would know everything about what she likes and what we
like by the end of all that. Well, seems like we were wrong.
Here
are some fun facts:
·
Seas with a component on the beam impart a rolling motion at the frequency of
wave passage from one hull to the next
·
Seas directly on the stern, especially big steep seas, look scary and make one
think we’re about to get swamped
·
Seas on the bow, especially short steep seas will about cause us to just about
bounce out of the master cabin bunk
·
Some of these conditions our autopilot Chevy handles well, some he kinda sucks
at
·
Catamarans have some interesting wave “slap” characteristics that partly relate
to bridge deck clearance, and partly relate to the underbelly shape and the ama
shapes
·
Catamarans don’t like sailing extremely deep downwind with main and jib due to
the mast rig design, so a different sail plan is called for unless you’re happy
jibing downwind to keep the apparent wind angle no further aft than a 120 deg
target plus the expected excursions
·
Our experience on this Pacific passage would indicate that trade winds are
steadier in velocity than they are in direction
·
A well-rested crew person handles high workload and “high gain” tasks a lot
better than a sleep deprived crew person
As
Isabel is fond of saying about me, why use one word when a page of text will
do? Yes, I do tend to be a bit verbose, but Behan has counseled me on the
subject. Apparently to read what I’ve written is just like having a
conversation with me, and that’s just my style, so run with it. That would
indicate I’m a talker and that I tend to go down rabbit holes, so buyer beware.
Hopefully there are some hard won pearls of wisdom embedded in all the BS, but
hey, nobody made you read this, now did they? Gotta be better than listening to
those idiot talking head so-called political pundits on CNN or Fox, right?
Right, Bob?
I
found out yesterday that an epistle in excess of about 2 typed pages causes the
PredictWind software on said device to puke, and there seems to be no cure, so
I’ve decided to break things up into multiple posts, and address a few of the
above points in each. Everybody loves a sequel, right? Speaking of which,
apparently there’s a Breaking Bad movie coming out soon. Isabel and I just
finished watching the series on Netflix. Amazing, crazy, can’t wait for more.
Unfortunately we forgot to cancel our subscription, so hopefully we’ll have
enough bandwidth to log on and do that when we arrive in Nuka Hiva. Pray we’re
not stupid enough to return to our programmed behavior of looking at the daily
news cycle, I’ve finally got my blood pressure under control.
I
bet Bob’s thinking about now, “how about a nice cup of shut the F up, Mark?”. .
.
Wups,
near the limit, so stay tuned for our next exciting episode! For a teaser,
we’ll talk about getting rest and whatever else there’s time for.
And
hey, Austin – I hope the picture you tried to send was of your newest painting
– please send a compressed version to my gmail address and maybe I’ll be able
to open that. Oh, and Brad’s family will be in AZ soon, so they’ll get to see
the painting you made for him. Awesome!
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