American Spirit II - Day 140; Lost Satellite Fix, Rough Weather & Flying Cap; Saturday, May 24, 2014

At 12:05 AM wind 25-30 knots, boat speed 5.7 knots.

Off watch 1:00 AM. Slept until 5;00 AM when Joel turned off generator. That woke me up. He had thought of not turning it off until 6:00 AM when I went on watch, but didn't. Bad choice. One hour less of sleep.

On watch 6:00 AM, speed 5.5 to 6.0 knots. Wind 20-25 with a lot of gusts 25-30 knots. Low cloud cover. Not a good visual picture. At 8:15 AM I let out more main sail and speed increased 2 knots from 4.8 to 6.8 knots. In hindsight, we had shortened sail too much last night, slowing the boat down too much. One BIG advantage of sailing faster, even if sailing faster is scary, is that by going faster you get to your destination sooner, spending less time in lousy weather. A lesson well learned.

At 9:00 AM a large wave came aboard and smothered the aft section of the cockpit. A moment later I had an alarm which said we'd lost our position fix, i.e. satellite coverage for the GPS system. I had to wake Joel up and have him turn the navigation system off and then on again. Meanwhile, I had to hand steer the boat while he did this as even the auto pilot was off for half a minute while he re-booted the navigation computer. Lost fix a second time, and went thru the same process again. All this while the wind is howling at 25-30 knots. I surmised that when we took the big wave it either knocked the GPS antennae astray, or the water was so deep in the aft cockpit area that the signal was lost because the antennae was under water too much.

One of the things that was unusual with this weather was that the wind was forward of the beam. We were on a close reach. Most of our sailing around the world is when the wind is behind the beam, not forward of it. Broad reaching or reaching.

The communication's net was held at 9:30 AM. Free & Breezy read off some GRIB weather forecasts which were totally useless. Wind speed were way too low from what we were experiencing.

At 10:00 AM for breakfast we had freeze fried instead of eggs because of the rough conditions. Easier to boil water than cook eggs in a skillet. Chicken Teriyaki and Rice.

Due to the rough conditions we decided that whomever wasn't on watch should be in bed resting even if they couldn't sleep. Not survival mode, but close to it.

At noon our position was: 16 degrees, 35 minutes South; 167 degrees, 0 minutes West. 226 miles to Niue.

I took a nap from 12 noon to 2:15 PM; then I typed the previous day's log. Hard to do due to the rocking and tilting of the boat.

We had a snack this afternoon of chilled Mandarin Oranges. Quite good. Joel took a nap at 3:25 PM until about 5:30 PM. During that time period the wind was at 23 knots and our boat speed was 7.3 knots. At one point I reached a speed of 9.6 knots.

At 4:16 PM I observed a horizontal rainbow on the horizon, port side. About 10% above the horizon. On a 10 scale I'd give it a 7.

At 4:03 PM a braking wave hit the forward 2/3rds of the boat and covered the boat in white foam. Also rocked the boat violently back and forth 45 degrees.

Dinner at 6:00 PM consisted of freeze dried Chicken a la King & Noodles, plus a vegetable (I forget what type) and chilled fruit for dessert.

The communications net was at 6:30 PM. From 6:45 PM to 8:00 PM I took a nap while Joel was in the cockpit; and came on watch at 8:00 PM while Joel went to sleep. During my watch the winds averaged 25 - 30 knots and our boat speed was 7.3 knots. It was so dark out I couldn't tell the ocean from the sky. I was wearing my fowl weather bibs, jacket and harness. Due to the light given off by our masthead tri-light, I could see the white foam of the passing waves to leeward due to the light that this navigational device gave out. Other lights on were the instruments at the back of the cockpit and lights in the cabin below at the navigation station.

Despite the rough conditions, being in the cockpit on watch was 90% pleasant and 10% lousy.

At 9:43 PM I stood up in the cockpit and looked to windward and my cap flew off. Miraculously, it had landed on the lower lifeline on the other side of the cockpit and was still 'stuck' there when I saw and retrieved it.

At 11:07 PM the wind had slowed to 18-22 knots and our boat speed was 6.9/7.0 knots. I could even see some stars.

343 Days until home.

Brian Fox
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