15º 14.324n 117º 56.575w
Mon Apr 22 2019
Well,
as Captain Ron said in the flick, if anything is going to happen, it’s going to
happen out there. The last few hours have been a comedy of errors and surprises.
As
a crew of three, we agreed as we began the passage that we’d fly the Parasailor
only during daylight hours, and if deep downwind we’d fly the simbo rig at
night. The Parasailor makes us pretty darn fast; the simbo gives us about half
the true wind speed when the apparent wind is +/-30 degrees from the stern.
Of
course the wind was light yesterday and a bit up and down. The Parasailor needs
around 8 knots TWS to be happy on JollyDogs, and flying the simbo rig at those
low wind conditions just makes us dog slow. The only satisfaction of going 3 -
4 knots under sail is that at least we’re not burining diesel.
Soooo,
given the light conditions, nearly full moon, and no risk of a squall, we
decided to fly the Parasailor into the night, with the caveate that Mark and
Thad would leap out of bed to manage any bad behavior if Isabel was on watch.
Turns out we didn’t have to wake Isabel, as during the watch change between
Thad and Mark the wind pooped out bit and suddenly the Parasailor was going
bananas, then snuffing itself (I guess that’s a good thing). Turns out the
snuffer line had managed to remove itself from the cleat and fall through a
crack in the trampoline edge. The drag of the line in the water pulled the sock
down to the ram air airfoil section. Naturally the moon was behind a cloud, and
with deck lights blazing it was hard to look up and understand what was going
on. We tucked our tails between our legs, bagged the sail, and commenced to
simbo sailing for the rest of the night. Isabel came on watch to a totally
maintenance free (albiet slower) sail plan, and Thad and Mark got some much
needed sleep.
More
goofiness in the next post!
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