American Spirit II - Day 69; Just Sailing; & Two Joel Mini Lessons; Thursday, March 13, 2014

Sunrise. 14-15 knots of wind; speed 5.5 knots. Shook reef out of main and picked up 1/2 to 1 knot of boat speed. Because boat speed down, hydro generator not charging as much as we like. Low voltage turned freezer off. Too much east in wind, so we have to steer left of Hiva Hoa. Right after sunrise the 2 fishing lines were put in the water: a silver spoon and a yellow rebella. The rebella submerges to 15 feet or so when trolled. The silver spoon slips on the surface. Then a large flock of terns were seen concentrating on a patch of ocean, going after a school apparently. No flying fish on deck today.

After morning exercise, put sails on 'wing on wing' mode. Main sail on one side, jib on the other. Jib held out with a pole. No good. Speed 4.5 knots. Dropped wing on wing idea 15 minutes later.

Turned generator on 9:15 AM. At slower speed thru the water we weren't getting the charging we needed.

In one of Joel's mini 'lectures' to Mike and me, this morning's session was about the 'Upward Spiral' of wind and speed. As Joel sees it, as boat speed goes up, the apparent wind goes forward and then increases, also. This allows the boat to sail a lower course more effectively and quicker.

Noon position: 8 degrees, 23 minutes South; 117 degrees, 43 minutes West. 1,260 miles to Hiva Hoa. We've sailed 1,720 miles on this leg so far.

At 11:30 AM while perusing the forward deck area, I found a 4 inch squid. There was a large, black ink mark around its body. Squid's squirt this ink as a defensive measure. I also found 4 1 1/2 inch flying fish. Too small to eat. At 12:15 PM we got a hit on the yellow rebella fishing line. BIG fish. Fought for 5 minutes before the line broke. There goes a $28.00 lure. Bummer. I'm surprised the pole didn't snap or go flying overboard.

Between 11:45 AM and 12:45 PM the wind dropped from 19 knots to 10 knots, which dropped our boat speed to 5.2 knots.

Another Joel mini lesson: picking the right wind speed to report. During our morning net every day, one of the things we report to the other boats is the wind direction and speed for our location. It is easy to report the wrong figure. For example, the boats rocks, a lot, in 8-10 foot seas. If you look at your boat's wind gauge when the boat is rocking, you'll probably get the wind speed wrong. If the boat is rocking to windward (the direction the wind is coming from), then the wind gauge will read a wind speed higher than it normally is. If the boat is rocking to leeward (the direction the wind is blowing to), then the wind gauge will read a wind speed lower than it normally is. You need to take the boat wind speed when the boat is not rocking, is level. Who knew?

The spinnaker went up at 2:10 PM; and we saw an immediate increase in our boat speed of 2.3 knots to 6.8 knots. Why didn't we put that sail up sooner? We kept the spinnaker up until 5:00 PM when we took it down just before dinner.

Dinner consisted of Ham steaks, green beans and fruit cocktail. A second, surprise dessert consisted of oreo cookies. Chef's surprise!
Small rain squall at 6:20 PM.

From 9:00 PM to 9:45 PM we had an AIS (Automatic Identification Alarm) alarm, meaning a collision with another vessel was imminent unless action was taken to avoid the collision. Not to worry. The 'alarm' was due to another boat, Trillium, and our boat passing closed together - within 1/4 mile. After 11 days at sea, its amazing that we'd be that close to another rally sailboat.

During the 9:00 PM - 12:00 AM watch (my watch), the wind increased to 19/20 knots. Our boat speed was hitting 7.0 to 8.0 knots. The 1/2 knot helping current didn't hurt any. Joel stuck his head up into the cockpit and asked me when we were going to reef the main sail. I told him no way! He went back to bed. The sky was overcast, with only a few stars visible thru openings in the clouds.

Brian Fox