For some, finding a path or choosing a career is easy. For me, it was difficult. I had mixed signals as a kid. There was a strong disconnect between what my parents wanted for me, what the school wanted of me, and what I wanted. My parents saw a doctor in me, I did not. They thought I would be a bad engineer, I did not agree with that, I loved tinkering with stuff. The tests in schools pointed towards law school, ties, and cufflinks. That was a big NO. I truly hated any formal wear and the idea of wearing a tie for the rest of my life was an impossibility. One thing was for sure, I hated any kind of authority. Working for somebody else was not in the cards. Those mixed signals sent me to Biology studies and the realities of life flipped me to Business School to end up doing advertising and desktop publishing. Not my first choice.
Since I would have been a bad engineer (according to the signals), I never repaired a pipe, or run wiring in the house. I did like most people do, I called the plumber or the electrician. Same with the car, my knowledge of engines boiled down to checking the oil level. I was in the mindset that I was completely incompetent with anything electric, construction or mechanic… And I was buying a sailboat. Dumb.
If there is a gizmo on earth that has all the complexities of life packaged into 1 box, it’s a sailboat. It must float, it must sail, it produces electricity and stores it, it produces fresh water and stores it, it has toilets, a fridge, a freezer, an oven and a stove, communications, satellite positioning, radar, sonar, pumps, a dinghy with an outboard, and a big diesel power plant to keep it going when the wind dies. The boat is not connected to the electricity grid and the toilet inside is not connected to a wastewater city system. Our sailboat would be in saltwater and exposed to salt spray. It is mandatory that everything on board is marine grade, so the boat does not rust away. To keep the boat going, you need to follow a rigorous maintenance program. For a mechanically challenged guy like me, the learning curve was steep.
And here we are, drifting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on day five of a crossing that could take 40 days… if I can make the engine start. We are near the equator, and we are in the doldrums. It could take weeks before the wind picks up. The engine cranking battery is at 100%. The house battery banks that keeps everything else running is at 50% state of charge and desperately needs a charge from the main diesel power plant. We have a wind generator but with not even the tail of the shadow of a mouse fart, the blades are not spinning. We are still moving at 1 knot on average with the Pacific current and making about 25 miles a day, but we are moving Northwest and we should be moving Southwest.
Turning around and going back towards Panama for troubleshooting the engine is not an option. It would take forever and be a very uncomfortable ride with a big northerly wind in the Panama Bay. Even if we tried hard to go back, we are stuck here slowly drifting away. We know that there is some wind around because there are still waves bobbing us and there is a very uncomfortable swell that really moves the boat erratically. There is one good thing; Danielle is not angry and not panicking. We will just work the problem.
It was time to take a few decisions. After all these years with Danielle, we do not need to discuss much and once we agree on something, we do not change our minds. If we look at the big picture, we are fine. We have fishing gear, 1000 liters of fresh water, food for 2 months without rationing. We also have a dinghy and an outboard with 50 liters of petrol so we can tow the boat at 3 knots for about 10 hours. The meat and perishable are still frozen hard. We clearly are in a better position than Christophe Columbus 600 years ago. The last two years on a boat thought us to always prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I might be able to easily fix the engine… or not. The only real power draw was the fridge and freezer. We could shut down all the other systems. And by powering the fridge half the time, I could probably stretch the batteries another 3 days. That would buy me a bit of time.
I always saw the diesel engine as the beast in the locker. It had been faithful and dependable so far. I did not know much about it. I knew all about the basics. The engine was probably fine, it just did not want to start. If I turned the key, there was nothing. There was no click, the starter was not engaging. It could be a thousand things. It could be the ignition key barrel, the starter, the solenoid, one of the electrical wires, a connection, a ghost, or a gremlin. I had no talent, but I had tools and a super book written by a sailor who had been the most important tool in the boat so far. The book was Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual by Nigel Calder. It was a no-nonsense book written for mechanically challenged idiots like me. The book mention that 95% of engine problems are either fuel delivery or electrical faults. The starter was not engaging so I was dealing with an electrical fault.
Having access to a diesel plant on a 40-foot sailboat is always a contortionist act no matter how well designed the boat is. In my case, the starter was on the port side of the engine and accessible from a hatch under the aft cabin bunk bed. The front of the engine that gave me access to the oil dipstick, filters and water pump was accessible by removing the stairs in the companionway. The starboard side of the engine, the transmission and all the electrical systems, fridge compressors, batteries, water maker and electronic navigation systems were accessible from the starboard cockpit locker outside.
The book was telling me to use my voltmeter to check for electrical continuity from the battery to the electric starter and back to the battery. That seems simple but it was not. The battery was in the outside locker and the starter was under the bunkbed. I was already feeling a bit nauseated with that new stress, the stifling heat of the equator and the continuous rolling of a drifting boat. I went outside and looked far away on the horizon to shake off a bit of the sea sickness. I then looked at the daunting task of emptying the starboard cockpit locker so I could get access to it. And off came the deflated and rolled dinghy. That thing alone was probably 90kg by itself. Then came off the 3 dive scuba tanks, the speargun, the basket of fins and wetsuits and a 250-meter coil of spare anchor rope. And there it is again, I am very nauseated. That uncomfortable roll of a drifting boat is very unpleasant. I can feel the inside of my cheeks tingling and that is never a good sign. I feel like shit. I decide to go lie down. I am unwell. I tend not to get seasick, but it did happen on a handful of occasions. I know it is stress related. I need to calm down and rest a bit. I could use some sleep, but my mind is racing.
I cannot sleep. I get up and try to have another run at it and get down in the locker. I start by unbolting the battery terminals, cleaning, and sanding them. Then I reattached the leads on the battery. It is now time to take a first reading on the power between the positive terminal on the battery and the first electrical bus bar. After a few minutes down in that hole and losing sight of the horizon, my brain cannot process the rolling motion of the boat and I have to get out of that locker right away. I put my head over the gunwale and there goes my half-digested breakfast overboard. Now I really need to lie down. The rolling motion of the boat drives me mad. It is very noisy. All the halyards inside the mast are banging on the aluminum sides and it makes an unbelievable racket. Danielle is running around the cabin securing everything and putting towels between stuff in cupboards that is clanking with every roll. She cannot even make coffee. Boiling water on the stove top range in these conditions is just a recipe for disaster. It will be lukewarm lemonade for now as we do not want to open the fridge to save power. Normally, if we were under power and moving forward, the boat would stiffen, and the rolling would dampen. We would probably run for a day to get away from that swelly zone until we could find some wind southwest of us. But now, we are a sitting duck getting tossed around by windless waves trains. I have no choices; I have to do something. I decide to get up to start the laptop that is connected to ham radio to download the latest weather-fax. The whole process will take about 5 minutes… so I lie down on the floor in the meantime. The fax is in. Not good. We are in the middle of a high-pressure zone that is quite wide, maybe 600-700 nautical miles near the equator. There will be no wind, no clouds, no rain. That diesel really needs to start. There is 500 liters of diesel that wants to be burned in those pistons. I know the engine is fine. I try to turn the key again just in case. Nothing. It is just not starting.
I decide to go down on the chart table to read again the troubleshooting section of Calder’s book. As I am going down the companionway, the boat starts to roll solidly to starboard. I slip on the very humid floor and solidly connect my lower left jaw with the door frame of the port aft cabin. A massive jolt of pain goes through my head and spine. I fall to the floor holding my jaw. The pain is very sharp and comes from inside my mouth. I can move my jaw, but it sharpens the pain when I do. Danielle is looking at me with panicked eyes. She can see my pain from my demeanor. I do not understand that pain. It is a very sharp pain. It feels like somebody is pushing a nail through my jawbone. Very slowly, the pain diminishes to an unbearable level I know. It is not a jaw problem… it is a tooth problem. My tongue finds the problem and sends me a clear message and diagnostic. I just lost a big filling in a left bottom molar and the tooth pulp is breathing air and sending me a clear signal that it wants its filling back right away. I can barely talk; I probably cannot drink or eat right now. The pain is unbearable. Danielle brings me 5 Tylenol that I dry-swallow, followed by a mini sip of water to push it down the tube. Covering the tooth with my tongue seems to help a bit. My list of priorities that needs to be addressed have just changed. Tooth is now priority #1. Diesel engine is now priority #2.
Fatigue, stress, nausea, and pain is a perfect mix to fog your brain. I never procrastinate. I have a very short fuse and usually move quickly in the decision-making process and never look back. That ability has now completely disappeared. I feel very powerless in front of that pain. I feel very incompetent in front of the engine. The clanking of the ropes in the mast from the continuous rolling is torture to my ears. I simply cannot focus. The pain occupies fully my attention. I am incapacitated by a missing tooth filling.
There is not much I can do about the filling. Danielle brings me 5 more Tylenols. She goes in the pharmacy box and pulls out the clove oil bottle. I dab a bit of it on the gum near the tooth and lie down on the floor. The pain slowly diminishes, and my mind clears a bit. A kind of solution slowly germinates. I know I have to plug that hole quickly. I have epoxy paste onboard for boat repairs. It takes a half an hour to cure and will need to stay dry during the process. It will probably kill the pulp in my tooth. That tooth will probably have to be extracted down the line but right now the prospect of stopping the pain is very alluring. I do not remember if epoxy expands when it cures and that is a scary prospect. Having a tooth crack open under the expansion of the epoxy paste curing would put me in a much worst situation. I decide to go ahead with that solution without filling completely the hole but more by caping the tooth with the paste. I take Danielle’s nail file and starts sanding and roughing the tooth so the epoxy sticks better. Standing in front of a mirror would be impossible with the rolling motion. I sand slowly the tooth while lying on the floor just by the feel of my tongue. When the enamel feels rough, I stop and ask Danielle to bring some paper towel. I sit down on the floor and start mixing a minute quantity of epoxy paste. It takes 30 minutes to cure and 24 hours to fully cure. I will apply the paste in five minutes just before it starts curing. In the meantime, I stuff it between the gum and the inside cheek. I put some also under the tongue to dry the area around the tooth. I shape the epoxy in my fingers in the shape of a small lens and squish it on the top of the tooth. Lying down on the floor, I check my watch and start the waiting game. Mouth open, I do not move. Incredibly, after a few minutes, the pain almost vanishes to a very bearable dull tenderness.
Bliss.
While I wait on the floor, I feel a surge of happiness. A victory. My mind defogs. My heart pounds heavily from the adrenaline. Pure joy. 30 minutes later, I remove the bits of paper towel and go check the job in the mirror. It looks good but a bit too big of a repair. I feel like I have a golf ball inside of my mouth. I will shape it down tomorrow when it is fully cured. I will shove down my throat soft food tonight making sure we keep a wide berth around that tooth today. It will be treated respectfully. I am still exhausted, and it is late afternoon. I do not have it in me to tackle the diesel engine. Danielle heats me up a chicken noodle soup with a piece of bread and I hit the rack. I will deal with the diesel beast in the morning. She will wake me up at midnight for my watch.
When she wakes me for my watch, I do not believe her that it is already midnight so far away I was. The boat is completely dark. Danielle had closed all switches, even the navigation lights, to keep the batteries from depleting. She tells me that the swell is abating and that the waves have also diminished. The boat is much more stable now that she mentions it. She then disappears into her bunk after kissing me. She never mentions the diesel engine. She is cool. No point in harassing me with that now.
I get a fix from the GPS and we have moved west by 8 miles since 3pm. I make a coffee, eat a peanut butter sandwich, close all the switches again and go sit in the cockpit. It is a starry night, and the moon is lighting up the night. That will provide plenty light for the rest of my 8-hour watch. Night watches are part of a sailor’s life. It is not a simple task. It can really mess up your head. It forces introspection and patience, two qualities that the western world is constantly robbing us of. The watchman keeps an eye on the boat and its systems and make a 360 check of the ocean every 20 minutes to spot cargo traffic or obstructions like dead trees or floating shipping containers. We hope it is a waste of time. It is not a waste of time in the Atlantic as there is constant traffic on the horizon. But here in the Pacific, we have not seen 1 cargo yet and we are going deeper in the no man’s sea. Still, we keep a watch, we never know.
I do not want to open the cockpit light to read a book. Everything I can do to preserve the batteries electrons, I will do. So, while looking at the stars, I think back about the tooth event of the previous day. That surge of happiness swells back in me just by rethinking about it. I had left Quebec City in 2004 a sad and depleted man. I had not found happiness in the following two years while cruising the Caribbeans. Nothing felt authentic with its mass tourism, massive cruise ships and fake handicrafts. But things had slowly turned to the better in Grenada when Danielle and I had decided to commit to crossing the Panama Canal and hit the Big Ocean. The San Blas Islands in Panama had been a revelation and the preparation of the boat to cross the canal and prep the boat on the Pacific side for our long journey to French Polynesia had been exciting and exhilarating. Panama had proven to be a country marred by drugs, corruption, guns, excitement and boundless beauty.
The morning star rises in the west and soon, in an hour or so, the morning lights will be my signal to start tackling the beast in the locker. I had 2 more peanut butter sandwiches and probably a liter of coffee during my watch so far and I was energized. I just could not wait to start. Patience. Wait for the morning lights. Let Danielle sleep, make no noise. Patience and introspection. I could not use a book as a distraction or listen to a DVD on the laptop. That would deplete more the house battery bank. It was time to introspect a bit more while waiting. Why was I sad in Quebec driving a Mercedes and playing golf? Why was I happy from the fact that I had lost a tooth yesterday? Human brains are strange animals. Those two questions would have to keep my head busy for another hour.
It is 5:30 am. Time to get problem #2 solved. I slowly slip in the cockpit locker to attach a wire to the positive electric bus bar. I carry the other side of the wire inside the boat near the aft bunkbed so I can take a reading between the starter and the bus bar. No problem there. I do the same trail but backwards from the starter back to the battery but on the negative side of the circuit. No problem there either. Danielle wakes up and asks me about my tooth. I have already forgotten about it, which is a very good sign. Technically, it is still my watch but now that she is up, she will keep an eye on the horizon for me while I frustrate myself with my poor electric troubleshooting capacity. Calder’s Book tells me that the next step is to jump the 2 poles of the solenoid with a screwdriver to activate the starter bypassing the key. I try it. Nothing. No click. Just the sound of silence. I go back in the cockpit and try to turn the key again. This time, I think I heard a click. To make sure, I ask Danielle to stay close to the starter. I turn the key again. She ears the click on the starter. Progress. We are going somewhere.
From what I understand, the battery is charged, the cables are ok, the key works but only minute power come to the solenoid. I have no choice, I have to disconnect every cable one by one, cleaned, lightly sand them and reconnect them and see what happens. I begin under the aft bunkbed with the starter. The connectors are lightly corroded but nothing serious. Once done, I try the key again. I get the same small click. Then I move to the negative bus bas. The bus bar is a clean and thick bar of stainless steel with 6 big bolts where you connect all the negative wires together. It acts as a big connector. The negative battery cable, the negative starter cable, the negative battery house bank cable and cranking battery and main switch board are connected there. I know the bus bar is fine because all the electrical systems of the boat are fine and working perfectly and for that, the bus bar is needed. Therefore, it works. Still, I decide to clean the cable terminals anyway and I start with the negative cranking battery terminal that I unbolt from the bus bar. As I am unbolting the cable, a white powder starts to drop from the bus bar. I turn a bit more and the bolt breaks off from the bar. I think I found the problem. If it is not The Problem, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. Galvanic corrosion on boats is a silent, sneaky, and constant enemy. It is corrosion induced by an electric current where metal baths in a conductive environment. In this case, the battery electricity passing from the cable to the bus bar and having the bolt and the bus bar being in a damp salt air of the locker. I can crush that bolt with my fingers so much it is corroded. My heart start to pound hard. I unbolt the starter cable off the bus bar and I have the same white powder. I take a new nut and bolt and bypass the bus bar by connecting the battery cable and starter cable together. I go in the cockpit; I close my eyes and turn the key. The diesel engine starts with a roar breaking the morning silence. Victory.
Like yesterday, I feel the same surge of happiness. My heart is pounding hard. Could this be happiness? Little daily victories? More food for my brain for my next watch tonight while looking at the stars. Danielle looks at me from the companionway with a big smile without saying one word. I tell her: “Baby, we are back in business! Put a bottle of Merlot in the fridge and taw some steaks. I will run the engine for 2 hours to recharge everything while I remake a new bus bar out of a bar of copper I have in the spares. I will then shut down everything when I install the bar and then we will run the engine for 24 hours to search for some wind.”
Danielle is surprised. Though both of us like our drinks, we never drink during a crossing. We drink only if the anchor is well settled on the sea floor in a sheltered anchorage with good weather. Life is full of pleasant exceptions. I punch 230-degree southwest heading on the autopilot, set the engine at 60% and go down the companionway to kiss Danielle.
That night during my watch, I reflect on the events of the last 48 hours. I am a very happy man tonight. I am still floating from the same buzz of those 2 victories. Eight hours watch is a long time to be alone with your thoughts. I never took the time back in Canada to do this. Our routines and hurries are a constant impediment to our overall health. There is surely something to be said about the benefits of yoga and meditation, but I never had the patience or the time to do either. Now this is night number seven of a crossing that will last at least another 30 nights. I will have another series of 30 forced meditation sessions. Maybe I can use this time to get rid of some of my demons.
Tomorrow morning, we will be passing the islands where civility, intelligence and science pulled humanity out of the religious dark ages. The Galapagos are an important landmark in our civilization history. These are the Islands where the English biologist Charles Darwin got his inspiration to write his book “The Origin of Species” on evolutionary biology 200 years ago. Finally, the clergy societies of the world had some explaining to do. But this time around, they would have to butt heads with factual science on important concepts. No more fairy tales of splitting waters, fiery demons, turning water into wine or resuscitation from the dead. Humanity was now ready for simple scientific facts. We will skirt the islands tomorrow without stopping. We had to take some hard decisions a month prior on our itinerary planning. The South Pacific is a massive body of water with many alluring destinations. There are 2 schools of thoughts on cruising amongst sailors. Either you go fast and go everywhere while making a few days stop at your destinations or you go slow, pick a few stops and enjoy them weeks at a time. Danielle and I found during our voyages that we were definitively very comfortable with the later concept.
Between Panama and the refuge of New Zealand, there is 10 000 km. At 8 km/h on average, that is 60-70 days of transit leaving you 150 days of enjoyment out of the 200 days of the hurricane free season that spans between April and November in the South Pacific. We had decided to skip Galapagos, Cook Islands, Niue and visit the Gambiers, the Tuamotus, the Society Islands, Tonga and Fiji. There is always the option to come on the following season to do the skipped countries.
I woke up Danielle at 8 am with a cup of coffee. At 8:16, we were crossing the equator for the first time in our lives. We did not make any fuss about it. As sailors you are supposed to either jump in the water or take a bucket of water and pour it on your head in some sort of ceremony to the gods of the sea. My brain has been wired by science, so I do not dwell in the thousands of superstitions surrounding the world of navigation. If you follow the traditions, you cannot leave the anchorage on a Friday, have bananas onboard or mention the word “Rabbit”. If you open a bottle of rhum onboard, you are supposed to pour a sip in the sea for Neptune. That is rubbish, I keep that sip of rhum for me.
We are getting closer to the Galapagos. We are still under power, and I will keep it that way until we clear the Islands. There is a very light breeze from the Southeast, less than 5 knots. That would move the boat at 2-3 knots under sail. That is too slow to clear the islands by darkness. I want to navigate these waters with the sun in the sky. We could have gone around to simplify our lives, but having the opportunity to peek by skirting the islands is very tempting. We have already passed the small island of Genovesa during the night. I plot a course to go through the island group by passing in the channel west of Santa Cruz Island, south of Pinzon Island and then hug the south coast of Isabela Island until we reach Puerto Villamil from where we will shut down the engine and lift the sail towards our next target, the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia.
The sun is setting as we are passing Puerto Villamil on Isabela and are back in the Big Blue. I raise the sails and shut down the engine. The breeze is very light, but after running the engine for more than 30 hours, we are overdue for silence. I fire up the radar now that the batteries are full and that the wind generator is back at work. It will make Danielle’s life easier, there could be some traffic around. I am passed bedtime. I grab a bite and go to my bunk. It is Danielle’s turn to churn ideas and memories for the next 6 hours.
Danielle wakes me up a bit earlier than usual with a smile on her face. As usual, as I wake up, my senses pick up on the state of the boat. We are probably moving at 1 or 2 knots under sail because the heel angle of the floor under my feet is no more than 10 degrees. There is no swell and no noise either.
- “Come and see this”, she says.
– “Can I make a myself a coffee first?”
- “No”.
I follow her outside in the cockpit. The weirdest sight and chill welcomes me outside. I am wearing only boxer shorts and my skin is hit by cold air. I have goose bumps in this chilly humid air. It feels like Nova Scotia in fall. A few hours ago, we were sweating and cooking under the equatorial sun in 26 deg C water.
I check the temperature of the water on the speedometer of the boat, and it indicates 16 degC. A drop of 10 degrees in a few hours. There is a dense layer of fog that is no more than 1 meter high. It is so dense that sometimes when it gets a bit thicker, the boat disappears under our feet. The demarcation between the fog and clear air is very sharp. There is a strong white reflection on the fog caused by the moon that is now up in the sky. That moon was full just a few nights ago and is still very bright. A thick blanket of milk, spilled over the ocean.
“You missed it”, Danielle tells me.
“I missed what?”
“You missed the moonbow. I just saw it. That is why I woke you up.”
I have read about moonbow in different books and cruising accounts. I never saw one. Danielle just saw her first one. A moonbow is a night rainbow caused by the moon. It is not colorful and usually is of a greyscale. Danielle tells me that it was in grey-green scale and started from the fog, went up in an arc towards the moon and back down on the foggy ocean.
I go quickly down in the cabin and change into better suited clothes, and I look our position on the map. We have moved 9 miles south of Isabela and we are leaving the Galapagos plateau. We are now back in the very deep ocean. We are moving at 1.7 knots. I go back outside and can easily see the silhouette of Isabela on our starboard back quarter. The Humboldt current is responsible for the fog. It is a very cold current that comes from the Antarctic, climbs back up towards the equator while hugging the South American continent. But here, it hits the Galapagos plateau creating an upwelling of cold water. The Galapagos Islands are bathing in nutrient rich waters brought by that current and have reputation of good fisheries. I want to confirm, and I go back down in the boat to check something in the toilet. The boat toilet is flushed by salt water and is called a marine head. There is an intake of saltwater, a manual pump that you activate to flush out your business either in a holding tank if you’re in coastal waters or out in the sea… if you are out at sea. I shut the cabin light and start activating the head pump. Right away, the toilet cabin lights up from the bioluminescent plankton in the toilet bowl.
Danielle and I know about this phenomenon because we have sailed extensively 60 miles east of Quebec City during our summer holidays. There, the water flicks from fresh to salt water and its temperature drops from 20 to 5 deg C. From that 60-mile mark on the river at Cap-a-l’Aigle, the river just slowly widens to become the Gulf of St-Lawrence and is the home of belugas, fin whales and blue whales. They come and feed on the krill and shrimps brought by the upwelling of the northern Labrador current. And if we sailed overnight, our wake became fluorescent from the churning of the bioluminescent plankton. A situation that is very similar to this one here in the Galapagos.
Danielle and I both agree that 1.75 knot is good enough to go on without firing up the diesel. It is far from our 5 knots average calculated for the trip, but we are moving in the right direction, and we do not mind a few more days on the water over the option of the annoying sound of the power plant. She prepares for bed while I prepare and cook a nice breakfast with canned corned beef (a newly discovered staple that is all your heart need for a short life with a mix of red meat, salt, and fat), fried eggs and toasts. Danielle rolls her eyes. She is more the cereal-yogurt type.
Once I am done with food and a shower, I go kiss Danielle good night and go back in the cockpit to assume my watch duties. It is midnight and the almost full moon is high and lighting up the white fog blanket. With all this reflection, we can almost see like in daytime. I could read a book without the cockpit light. The air is cool and damp, and my brain is slowly processing the fact that we are really moving away from civilization into a no man’s sea. The surreal picture of gliding on a foggy blanket with no waves and no sound is absolutely exhilarating. Once in a while, I hit a patch of warm water with no fog and I can see that there is no waves and no ripples on the water. We are sailing on flat calm water. I can feel no wind on my cheek, but the electronic anemometer at the top of the mast is showing 5 knots from the southeast. Maybe the fog blanket is blocking the wind at sea level and we have air movement only a few meters higher up. This is the coolest sailing I have done so far. I decide to occupy myself on this watch by racing my fat 16-ton cutter-rigged full-keel sailboat against an inexistant competitor. I can see that Danielle is not sleeping yet and reading a book in her bunk. Good, because I will make a bit of noise shuffling sails around.
I start by turning the boat 10 degree south to close on the wind and have a bit more apparent wind on the beam putting a bit more pressure on the main sail. As long as we are going between South and West, I am not too fussy about an exact heading. I will adjust the heading when we get closer to the target in a couple of weeks. The speedometer shows 1.9 knot, and the hull heels an extra 2 degrees at 11 degrees to starboard. I have a mental target of 2.5 knot. It is probably unachievable. The fun I will have in trying to get close to it will keep my mind busy, a nice alternative to sitting down in the cockpit and getting hammered by old guilt loaded memories.
1.95 knots.
The rule is simple, in soft wind, soft sails. I release the sheet on the main until the sail starts to collapse and slowly bring back the sheet until the sail slowly fills fully. I leave it there and wait a bit while fixing my eyes on the speedometer. The boat comes back to 9 degrees of heel, but I can feel a bit more speed from the tension release.
2.04 knots.
Time to do the same with the front Yankee sail. I release the sheet until the sail collapse and bring it back in to the exact point where it fills and balloons fully.
2.1 knots.
The staysail, caught between the main and the Yankee gets the same treatment. That one is a much smaller sail but somehow stays full even if I release it more than the two other sails. It seems to give a bit more wind speed behind the main sail. That is an opportunity to release the main a bit more without it collapsing.
2.2 knots.
I get behind the helm and disengage the autopilot. This is the only way to feel if the balance of the sail is right. I put three fingers on the top of the wheel to get a feel of what is happening under the hull. The boat wants to go to port slightly. I have 3 options; either I pull the sheet of the yankee increasing the pressure on the bow, or I release the sheet of the main sail that would remove some pressure off the stern, or I slightly turn the boat back to starboard by maybe 5 degrees now that we are moving a bit faster. I decide to do a mix of everything by slightly pushing the helm to starboard and reengaging the autopilot, releasing the main a bit and pulling on the Yankee a bit.
I wait for the boat to react slowly.
2.3 knots.
2.35 knots.
I think I have extracted every ounce of juice out of the hull. From the original 1.7 knots, that is a 40% increase in speed, free of charge. The biggest benefit is that my mind was occupied on a meaningful and measurable task. The anemometer at the top of the mast is showing me 6 knots. I do not know if it is from the increased speed of the hull or from an increase in windspeed per se.
2.4 knots.
Danielle has flicked off her light. She is probably sound asleep. I am alone again with my thoughts while enjoying the most incredible sailing of my life. The boat is simply moving like a magic carpet on flat calm water. If I look at our stern wake hidden in the dense fog, I can see a light green glow in the fog from the churning of the plankton. The autopilot is barely working. The sails are well balanced and there is no pressure on the helm. The whole situation is surreal. It is very rare to have pleasant sailing conditions. Most of the time, we have to fight heavy seas, heavy counter winds or no wind at all. This moment is precious. I have been happy three nights in a row. Is this a new trend in my life?
2.45 knots.
