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American Spirit II - Day 306 Supplemental; An Ugly Day on the Indian Ocean, but a Good Weather Forecast for Crossing the Aghulas Current Monday; Friday, November 7, 2014



Up at 6:00 AM. I relieved Jeremy, who said he had a bad pinched finger. Its overcast with a light rain falling. Very, very bumpy with large swells from the west and southwest. An ugly, uncomfortable day. The wind is SSE at 15/19 and we're moving at 5.0 knots thru the water and 6.4 knots over the land. Its so cloudy out I can't tell when the sunrise was. I didn't sleep well last night due to the bumpy, rough conditions. Its cold and I'm wearing my thermal underwear, bottoms and top (which Joel gave me); pants; foul weather pants; a long sleeved shirt and my heavy foul weather jacket. Plus a cap and harness.

I put a second reef in the mainsail. The jib already has 1 reef in it. I turn the wind turbine off as we're starting to overcharge the batteries. We can tell when that is occurring because the hydro generator starts discharging and make noise when it does so.

At 7:00 AM the wind is 26 knots and I put a 2nd reef in the jib. Its tiring work with one person doing it.

I see 1/5 of a rainbow on the port bow. 1/5 meaning it goes from the surface of the ocean up only 20% of a 100% arch. The colors from left to right are: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and mustard.

At 7:20 AM I see a patch of blue sky abaft the port beam. The sun actually pokes thru for a couple of minutes...then is gone. Then I see a little more blue sky on the starboard bow. But I'm not hopeful that the clouds will disappear today. And I don't know if these clouds are from a high pressure or a low pressure system; an anti-cyclone or a cyclone, as they call them down here.

I 'catch' another rainbow at 7:35 AM; starboard, just forward of the beam. The colors this time, from right to left: red, yellow, turquoise, green, blue and purple.

At 8:35 AM I discover a serious problem with the mainsail. I can't reef the sail in; can't roll it in. The reason is because the spare main halyard has rolled up in the roller furling. After letting the mainsail out to unwind it, I summon Joel from his berth to get dressed and go forward and hold the line while I roll the sail in some. He does this 15 minutes later and then secures the spare main halyard so it won't do this again. One of the operating principles on the boat is when you're using a winch and a line doesn't winch in or out like it usually does, stop and investigate. When I couldn't roll the mainsail in I finally figures out why. If I'd kept trying to roll it in a fixable problem could have easily become much more difficult to rectify.

At 8:40 AM I see that Folie a Deux is 2 miles off our port beam.

Bradley from Alpheratz hosts the 9:00 AM net.

Breakfast at 9:30 AM is in the main cabin, a rarity as we almost always eat in the cockpit. Eggs, potato, pear halves and bread.

At 10:00 AM Tim from Folie a Deux shares the latest GRIB weather information with us over the VHF radio. The wind forecast for Sunday is ENE and from the north on Monday and lighter. That's great news as we're hoping to cross the dangerous Aghulas Current Monday and be in Richards Bay before sunset Monday.

At 10:30 AM Saphir, Folie a Deux and American Spirit II have a SSB net to go over current waypoints that Joel has from the US Navy.

Our noon position is 25 degrees, 39 minutes South; 40 degrees, 37 minutes East; and we're 456 miles from Richards Bay. We traveled 157 miles from noon yesterday at an average speed of 6.5 knots.

I nap from 12:00 PM to 2:30 PM; and then Joel naps starting at 3:00 PM until 4:00 PM.

The wind is 20-25 knots; and we're moving at 6.0 knots thru the water and 6.6 knots over the land; on a heading of 274. We have the mainsail with 1 1/2 reefs and the jib with 1 reef.

At 4:00 PM the wind is 21 knots and we're moving at 6.5 knots thru the water and 7.1 knots over the land. At 5:00 PM the wind is 19 knots and we're moving at 6.3 knots thru the water and 7.0 knots over the land.

Dinner at 5:35 PM is freeze dried Sweet & Sour Pork; green peas; chilled pear halves; and bread.

Bradley from Alpheratz hosts the 6:00 PM net. Tim from Ghost and Bradley discuss weather information for the net. Thanks guys! Erling from Saphir says some whales 'blew' near their boat. They didn't say what type of whales. I guess they're having a whale of a time on Saphir; first they get 'squidded', now they get 'whaled.' lo

From 6:00 PM to 7:25 PM I type logs and emails.

At 7:30 PM I send the log and emails out via the SSB radio, to a station in South Africa 654 miles away at a heading of 271 degrees True. The send is quick at 1400 bytes per minute; but when I receiving I get 'stepped on' and disconnected. 'Stepped on' is when another radio operator gets on your frequency and kicks you off, disconnects you. I go to a different frequency, get connected than disconnected; then I go back to the frequency I got kicked off of and step on that person, kicking them off the frequency. By 7:56 PM I'm done.

Joel requests and then gets a weather GRIB file and after taking forever to download it (its a big file), we read it and see that the weather in Richards Bay is going to change quicker than expected. That winds from the southwest are going to start blowing at 20+ knots from the dreaded southwest direction at 6:00 AM UTC Monday morning. This is half a day before we thought the wind would go 'bad.'

Later on, as Joel is napping before his midnight watch, we talk about the weather and decide to turn the motor on and start motor sailing, even though we have 20 knots of wind and am sailing at a good clip. We can sail and motor quicker. So at 10:17 PM we turn the motor on to 1600 RPM's. The wind is 20 knots and we're moving at 6.8 knots thru the water but 8.3 knots over the land. That's cool! We're motor sailing with the mainsail and jib.

There is a full moon behind the boat, low in the sky; and the sky is clearing some.

Brian Fox

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