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American Spirit II - Day 68; Sleigh Ride at Night; Wednesday, March 12, 2014



Great sunrise. Lost of blue sky, low wispy trade wind clouds. Wind 16-20 knots, seas 8 feet, speed 7 knots. A small .2 to .3 knot helping current. No flying fish on deck this morning. The reason is because with a 3/4 moon the fish fan see the boat and therefore they can miss it. We'll know if this hypothesis is accurate when we have no moon again.

According to our Pilot Charts the wind should start coming more from the east instead of southeast from here all the way to Tahiti. The problem with that is when the wind is directly behind you its a very inefficient point of sail if your heading just south of west, which is what we're doing. To sail effectively, you have to either fly a spinnaker or sail at an angle to the wind behind you, jibing back and forth across your rumb line a few times a day.

Breakfast was at 9:30 AM just before the 10:00 AM net communication. Putting breakfast together entails the following: pull up bilge board and get 6 eggs from protective, plastic egg storage cases there; crack eggs and put into a stirring bowl, while trying to keep the eggs from escaping the bowl as the boat heels and rocks back and forth 15 degrees each direction; stir; add red pepper and other spices; get ham and cheese from refrigerator and cut slices from each; add to and mix with eggs; then put on gimbaled propane stove to cook, adding a cover to the skillet so the eggs don't go flying out of the skillet. Even with a gimbaled stove that's possible (eggs spilling out) until the eggs get some consistency.

All meals are eaten in the cockpit, on a table there that opens up on two sides. Its a challenge to keep everything - plates, silverware, salt and pepper, jelly and peanut butter; not to mention the bowl holding the eggs, from sliding off the table onto the cockpit floor or into the ocean. With breakfast we'll have crackers that we'll cover with strawberry jelly and/or peanut butter. Takes the place of bread since our bread spoiled one week into this leg.

Noon position: 7 degrees, 31 minutes South; 115 degrees, 24 minutes West. 1,411 miles to go to Hiva Oa. We've already gone 1,569 miles.


At 11:23 AM Mike informed us that 'The shuttle has landed.' By that he meant that he'd paid a visit to the head and was able to 'take care of business' for the first time in 6 days. We were getting worried. No one had any laxities on board. This sort of 'problem' is common for persons on boats. It just happens.

I finished reading Kon-Tiki, and to quote the author: "When we were halfway across (from Peru to French Polynesia), we were about 2,000 miles from land both ahead and astern. We felt we were living in a strange world - east of the sun and west of the moon.'"My thoughts exactly. For those of you who haven't read the book, the raft Kon-Tiki sailed over 4,000 miles in 101 days along most of the same route that we're taking, in 1947. This expedition garnered worldwide attention.

At 11:35 AM we put a Tri-Reacher pole on the jib, 'low side pole,' to hold the clew out and keep it from collapsing. Picked up 1/2 knot of speed in doing so.

Joel hooked a bill fish at 12:10 PM and the line broke, fortunately, when he was reeling it in. We don't need to reel in a sail fish. The lure, a silver spoon, was gone. Not to worry, we have a dozen more; and they're relatively cheap compared to some of our other lures.

At 2:45 PM our Auto Pilot cut off again unexpectedly. Never a dull moment on a boat. Not sure why it happened this time.

Dinner tonight consisted of 3 different type of TV dinners - beef stew; ravioli and spinach; and pepper steak and noodles. Cooked in the micro wave. The first two were good, the last one was not. Spoiled, even though a non-refrigerated item from the US. We also had canned sausages, peas and carrots, and chilled fruit out of a can.

Radio reception during the 7:00 PM net wasn't very good, so we didn't pick up much information regarding the other boats in the rally.

After the net, we got the boat ready for another squall, that didn't hit us. Good.

From 8:30 PM - 12:00 AM the wind increased from 10-15 knots to 20-25 knots. Before I reefed the main sail (shortened sail) to slow us down, we were averaging over 8 knots, with the highest speeds just short of 10 knots. To reef the main sail, you first wrap the 'inhaul' line on a winch and put a winch handle on it; release the 'outhaul' clutch, and as you winch the inhaul line in you release the outhaul line out. The main sail rolls up into the mast. With less main sail exposed to the wind, there is less wind pressure on the sail and the boat slows down. The whole process from start to finish took me less than 5 minutes. So simple a caveman could do it.

When Joel relieved me at midnight, we activated the water maker to make water for 4 hours. Again, making water without turning on an electric generator is pretty nice. Most of the boats in the rally have to use their electric generators to make water. Of course on most of those boats they're making 30-50 gallons per hour. We make up to 8.6 GPH max, but usually just 5 GPH.

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