Hope Comes with the Wind

The words "Les, it's time" routed me out of the warm cozy rocking bunk into the dim red light of the main salon. It was 2130 and I'd been asleep about 2 and a half hours. Barely able to keep my eyes open, I rummaged around on the opposite bunk looking for the clothing I had deposited there. As the boat rocked beam to beam, I fumbled with dressing. "What's happenin'?, I mumbled" "Winds are shifting and I am having to head northeast. It looks like we're going to get a squall. Why don't you hustle out here and we'll heave to until it goes by." "Ok, sure". Quickly securing my inflatable harness I paused briefly at the companionway to clip onto my tether before continuing to the cockpit. Philip was in the midst of furling the genoa while the boat wallowed in the swell. I took the wheel, released the windvane steering device and took note of our point of sail as Philip pull the mainsheet traveler to the centerline. "Are we ready?" "We just need to get the preventer ready. Ok, got it" "Ready?" "Yep" "Wearing ship! She's coming around, wind abaft, coming over, now" - whomp - the boom moved across the boat onto the other tack in a motion dampened by the grip Philip held on a preventer line, and I kept the wheel to weather to bring her bow towards the wind. Settling in to a hove to stop, Philip handed me a line to secure the wheel to weather, then went below to brew some tea, record our position report and weather conditions, and begin his off-watch.

Standing up and looking around into the night to search for lights of ships, the blackness of the night seemed intimidating, particularly since I was anticipating the approaching squall. Bringing the radar out of standby mode, I studied the squall. A few minutes later, sipping tea, I tidied up the various control lines in the cockpit to kill time and ready us for the deluge. Time ticked ever so slowly. Luckily the squall was not intense and the rain was relatively light, at least by tropical standards.

As the rain tapered off, winds filled in and I was thrilled to determine that they were from the SE or even ESE as we had been given a prediction of southerlies; a wind that would not allow us to sail to Ninigo. Releasing the wheel, I wore ship again and sheeted in and then dropped the mainsheet traveler to lee so we would get a bit of drive and begin to move forward. Adjusting and setting the windvane to steer on our course of 180, or due south, I rolled out the staysail and Carina's speed rose a bit more and steering became more reliable. I then turned my attention to the genoa and sequentially let out furling line and cranked on the winch until I had about 1/3 of the genoa flying. By this time, Carina was zipping along at about 4.5 knots in about 10 knots of breeze, as hard to the wind as she points. She was balanced and heeled only a bit. With the momentum, she began to drive to weather even better and our course was actually east of the rhumb line to our waypoint 6 nm west of the west-most motu at Ninigo, so I eased the sheets a bit and re-adjusted the helm.

Standing up and gripping the dodger handhold, I poked my head up to survey the surroundings and could see nothing except blackness. The uncomfortable feeling of driving hard at unseen hazards made me stain my eyes and sniff the warm night air, though I was thrilled to be sailing after days of excruciatingly slow progress in mere zephyrs of less than five knots. Carina's motion was fluid and she hit each wave with gusto that surprised me given her payload. I was no longer groggy...I was having fun and happily anticipating arrival at Ninigo after almost 12 days at sea.

At 8/9/2016 and 0:56 UTC (GMT) our position was: 01°23.54'S / 144°10.80'E.






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