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American Spirit II - Day 272; A Fast Sailing Day in the Indian Ocean; Saturday, October 4, 2014



Up at 5:00 AM. Not sure if its because I was fully rested or because of the loud noise and violent motion the boat was making. Go figure.

I relieve Jeremy before 6:00 AM. The wind is a steady 20 knots and we're doing 6.5 knots thru the water and 7.5 knots over the land. I put a reef in the main. Its overcast. With the wind over the port, aft quarter we should be able to go to a low side pole from wind on wing, once Joel gets up.

I get rained on at 7:44 AM. Just a passing shower. Over in a few minutes. A few minutes later another squall is coming our way. The wind is 17/20 and building and we're making 6.5 knots thru the water and 7.2 knots over the land.

Breakfast is at 9:35 AM and consists of scrambled eggs, twice cooked potato, chilled pear halves and bread.

Charlie from Celebrate hosts the 10:00 AM net; and gives us a '3 word assignment' for tonight's net, which he also hosts. Pick any three words. Joel comes up with 'Nicely Making Way', from a Crosby, Stills and Nash song about sailing.

Our noon position is 15 degrees, 52 minutes South; 85 degrees, 46 minutes East; and we're 1,623 miles from Mauritius. We travel 146 nautical miles from yesterday noon; at an average speed of 6.1 knots.

We put a second reef in the mainsail and 1/2 reef in the jib. A wild day, weather wise.

At 4:30 PM though the waves are only 8 feet and the wind only 22 knots, but the boat is rocking and rolling so much that when sitting on the windward side in the cockpit you have to brace your legs against the table to keep from being thrown about. Its also noisy with the wind howling non stop. At least its partly sunny. We're still moving along at 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 knots all reefed up. Our heading is 247 degrees or about 2 or 3 degrees south of our rumb line.

Dinner at 5:20 PM is freeze dried Ravioli in Meat Sauce; brown rice; and chilled fruit cocktail. Because the boat is rocking so violently I only serve one item at a time from the galley.

At 5:45 PM a fishing net floats by. We missed it by 15 feet. Glad that it didn't get wrapped around our keel, rudder or propeller. Or did the part we didn't see...

Charlie hosts the 7:00 PM net. At the end of Charlie's broadcast he reads our boat story. During the net my Battleship game board goes flying. No playing that game with Polaris tonight. The pieces are all over the cabin floor. And I was winning, having already sunk 3 of his 5 ships.

I tried to nap before my 9:00 PM watch but no luck. At 8:20 PM I go on deck and help Joel take down the tri-reacher pole. We'd just taken a big roundup wave and the pole kept the jib from stopping the round up. Once the pole is down the boat is no longer being rounded up by large waves so easily.

During my 9:00 PM to midnight watch the wind is a constant 20-26 knots. Its cold out and I'm exhausted. No naps today. I even fell asleep during my watch in the cockpit. A first.

Joel relieves me at midnight and from 12:05 AM to 12:11 AM I send out a log and emails; and receive some emails. The SSB station is in Brunei, Philippines and is 2,181 miles away at a heading of 57 degrees True. The send and receive of transmissions is fast - both at 1,400 bytes per minute.

Brian Fox




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