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American Spirit II - Day 181; Sailing to Tanna, Vanuatu; Saturday, July 5, 2014



Happy July 4th for those in America back home. We celebrated July 4th yesterday in Fiji. Remember, we're a day ahead of you.

Joel stood the 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM watch. Chet the 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM watch. The highlight of Chet's watch was seeing one shooting star; and the fact that its not often you get to see the Milky Way the way he and we are doing crossing another ocean away from all lights on land. For his first overnight watch on a yacht on the ocean, with some interesting wave sets and heights, Chet did quite well. Chet's dad, Bill, who passed away a couple of years ago, I'm sure is proud of seeing his son getting his sea legs.

At 5:43 AM our auto pilot quite. It does this once a month or so. The boat rounded up into the wind and before it was over we'd done a 360 circle and headed back on course. Joel and I were both up the ladder at the change in boat motion. Joel got there first and the auto pilot was set again. Other boats have reported having the same problem.

I assumed watch at 6:00 AM and at that time we had four boats in proximity of us: Folie a Deux, Saphir, Seaduced and Lluiton.

Angie was sleeping in the V-Berth with a lee cloth up; and Joel was soon doing the same thing again in the port quarter berth, using a lee cloth to stay in bed. The wind was 18-20 knots out of the southeast, and our boat speed was 6.5 knots.

At 6:28 AM I turned the masthead tri-light navigation light off. This light shows three different colors depending on which angle you're looking at us from: Green from port; red from starboard; and white from behind. FYI. If you ever have a ship showing its green and red lights together, it means its coming directly at you and evasive action is required to avert a collision. This has happened a few times on his voyage. Its always exciting when this happens.

The sun rose at 6:50 AM behind us, with rays peaking thru the clouds. Actually, a nice picture. So I got my camera out and took one. A picture. However, ahead of us looks like a cold, wintry day up north in December. Low overcast clouds.

At 8:02 AM I shook out the reef in the jib and mainsail. I'm trying to keep Lluiton from passing us to starboard; and I'm trying at the same time to catch Seaduced who is ahead of us a short distance. Both of these boats are much bigger than American Spirit II, so the fact that we can even see them after 3/4's of a day at sea is good. For us.

Angie and Chet joined me in the cockpit at 8:30 AM. At 9:00 AM Joel was up and reporting our position on the morning communications net, hosted by Charlie on Celebrate. Charlie is the Johnny Carson of net communications and it's always a treat to hear his voice conducting a net. All the net controllers are good. He's just funny and always make you feel good when listening to him. A 'glass half full' sort of guy.

We had freeze dried for breakfast, a rarity for that meal. A little rough out. Chicken Teriyaki with Rice. Angie had a fruit cocktail and half of an apple. Getting her sea legs. Joel actually didn't finish his meal. A rarity for him. He thinks it was actually something he ate at Musket Cove.

We put the preventer on the boom, as the wind was clocking behind us on the port, aft quarter. The preventer is a line attached from the bow of our boat to the end of the boom, to keep the boom from jibing accidentally and damaging the boom, mainsheet traveler car, etc. in the process. That's why its called a 'preventer.' It prevents bad things from happening. If you remember on our leg from the Galapagos Islands to the Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands, we had an accidental jibe with the preventer not yet attached and broke our mainsheet traveler can in the process. As a result of that, we couldn't use our mainsail for a few weeks until we got a new car shipped in from the US.

At 10:40 AM a gust of 22 knots hit us and while surfing down a wave at the same time we hit a speed of 9.9 knots. Cool. A short while later we were screaming along at 8.0+ knots for a while. And to make matters better, we were sailing to an area of blue sky ahead of us. Sunshine hear we come.

We had 2 wave patterns to contend with. The waves driven by the trade winds blowing from the southeast and behind us on our port, aft quarter; and a larger wave set from ahead on the port, forward quarter. The waves ahead of us coming at us were big, some 14 feet and very wide or broad. Folie a Deux was visible ahead on the starboard bow 2 or 3 miles with their spinnaker up. Very impressive. Only boat I've seen so far with one up.

At noon our position was 18 degrees, 20 minutes south; 174 degrees, 48 minutes East; and 310 miles form Tanna, Vanuatu.

At 2:13 PM we had a whisker pole malfunction when we were putting it up to go 'wing-on-wing.' An important piece of plastic from the track on the mast fell out. Joel didn't see it, but I did. It landed and was overlaying the starboard toe rail, ready to go overboard. I grabbed it and we put it back in. A stopper at the bottom of the whisker pole tract is supposed to keep that from happening, but the stopper is gone.

The sun set at 5:30 PM. No green flash due to clouds on the horizon.

At 6:00 PM we had freeze dried for dinner: Beef Stroganoff with Noodles; and chilled fruit cocktail.

From 6:42 PM to 7:20 PM I sent out three logs and emails via the SSB (Single Side Band) Radio. I had to go thru 4 receiving stations to find one that would work and not disconnect me. Finally I got connected to Honolulu, Hawaii 2,902 nautical miles away.(A nautical mile is 15% longer than a statue mile). As I was doing this we lost our AIS signal. Upon investigation, we found that we'd blown the AIS 5 amp fuse. Hope that's not a precursor of things to come for our AIS again. We've had many AIS problems the last year, but never blown a fuse. Fortunately, we have many spare fuses. The high energy from our SSB is suspect for the cause.

I took my pre-watch nap from 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM. The first thing I did was take the canvass insert off between the dodger and bimini. That way I could lay down in a recliner and watch the stars. Even with a half moon out, it was still an impressive sight. And the half moon itself was beautiful, casting a sparkling radiance on the water from the bow of the boat to the far distant horizon. And to top it all off, we had Folie a Deux's masthead running light behind us a few miles.

The wind was 13 knots and our boat speed was 5.3 knots. We needed to average 6.0 knots to read Tanna, Vanuatu in daylight Monday, but 5 knots is always a pleasant speed to sail. For one thing it means that its not too windy out. So waves are usually lower, also. I'd sail around the world at 5.3 knots and would love it. We're still wing-on-wing, with little rock and roll motion. It was actually warm. I had to take my jacket off and was wearing light camping pants and a long sleeved shirt only. Remember, its winter here. Its nights like this why we sail across oceans. I'm listening to Elton John's Circle of Life right now; with my head phones on. (Joel doesn't approve). And I'm doing this with daughter number 1, Angela and her husband, Chet on board. How great is that?!

I spotted a sailboat light at 10:20 PM on our port beam, 3-4 miles away. At 11:37 PM the wind was 12 knots, and our speed 5.0 knots. The moon was covered by clouds. Clouds to our west, where we're heading. Clouds usually mean more wind. Low pressure coming? Stay tuned.

Off watch at midnight. Joel on watch.

Brian Fox

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