Stability, Speed & Shaving

Last night the conditions,though strong, were stable, and the boat was flying. Because of confidence in the autopilot, I was able to get several 40 minute naps in, and this morning I felt much better rested than has been the case.

Preparing for one of our media requirements, a live video interview at noon, I took the drastic step of shaving. At sea, shaving is very painful, and it took almost 45 minutes. Alas, it turned into a radio interview. But that is ok as my face feels better now!

Just before that we had an incident where, with a big puff of wind, the boat took off, and then the autopilot decided to stop. So the boat turned up toward the wind, and lay over at about 45 degrees, with both sails luffing (flapping). I rushed into the cockpit and grabbed the tiller, but couldn’t let out the sheet for the mainsail because I couldn’t reach it. So Iet go the tiller, the boat rounded up into the wind again, but I was able to let out the sail and then take the tiller again, and get control.

Fortunately, when I pushed the Autopilot button again, it engaged. We have a call in to our electronics guru to find out what might have happened. After that incident, with the wind still strong and puffy, up to 27 or 28 knots, I decided to tone things down a bit, and put the second reef into the mainsail, to reduce the size of the exposed sail. That helped a lot, and the boat regained some stability in its speed. It is quite difficult to do when the boat is sailing downwind, rather than up wind, but we were able to do it without any big problems.

Position:
25° 18’N x 22° 15’W
True Wind Speed:
15-25kts
Boat Speed:
12-21kts
Sails:
Fractional Gennaker plus mainsail with two reefs
Course:
200°
True Sea state:
rolling and breaking seas, 8-10′