can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

American Spirit II - Day 74; Rainbows, Speed Explainted, Remora, Mixed Waves & Special Dinner; Tuesday, March 18, 2014



The day started poorly. At 4:00 AM Joel wanted to jibe jib and pole over. Decided not to. Too difficult to do in the dark, and no hurry to do so anyway. Middle of my night. Woke up for good at 6:20 AM because full moon was perfectly positioned on starboard bow to shine thru my aft cabin porthole right into my eyes. Like a spotlight in your face. Before assuming morning watch duties from Mike, my daily routine includes shaving, even when its rough out. Then boiling the kettle to make hot water for a cup of coffee. Have to have that first cup in the morning.

At 7:03 AM spotted a rainbow on the port bow. Red, yellow and green in color. Last until 7:30 AM. A long rainbow. The wind was 13/14 knots from the ENE, and our speed was 6.1 knots. The sunrise was beautiful, cloudy on the horizon, of course, but with the sun's rays shooting out behind the clouds as the upper limb became visible.

Concerning boat speed, there are three speeds that we are constantly monitoring: speed thru the water; speed over the ground; and VMG (Velocity Made Good). Speed thru the water is important because it lets us know exactly how fast we're going without any impact of current. Speed over the ground or GPS speed, is more important because it lets us know exactly how we're progressing to our destination, and includes any current influence, either a helping current or one that hurts our forward progress. And VMG is our speed actually toward our target. For example, we could be going 7 knots at an angle of 15 degrees to our destination. However, our VMG might be 5.7, because not all of our boat's speed is directly pointed at our destination. We're still getting closer to our destination, just not directly towards it at 7.0 knots.

Exercise at 7:45 AM.

Morning net at 9:00 AM. Breakfast after the net consisted of scrambled eggs, spiced up of course; chopped ham and cheese; plus crackers with strawberry jelly, peanut butter and white cake frosting.

At 9:42 AM we took down or spinnaker as the wind was up. Put up poled out jib on port side.

Noon position: 9 degrees, 54 minutes South; 129 degrees, 37 minutes West. Distance to Hiva Hoa 555 miles.

Between 1:00 PM and 3:30 PM two of us at a time took naps to recover from the interrupted sleep the night before.

The fish line with the Rebella lure got all twisted up because it was skipping on the surface instead of tracking 15 feet under water. Go figure. Had to cut the twisted line off.

At 4:15 PM when we pulled up the hydro generator, a 3 inch remora was found attached to it. It wouldn't unattached itself from the device even though it was now out of the water and would die if it didn't get back in the water. With some persistent encouragement, I got it back in the ocean. How does something that small get attached to the boat when the boat's going 5 or 6 knots anyway? Beats me.

At 4:50 PM the waves were coming from two directions - southeast and northeast. Some of these were big. The net result was an awful rocking motion, back and forth, all the time.

At 5:15 PM Joel and Mike saw two rainbows, each 30 degrees off the port and starboard transom. The cook didn't see these as he was busy cooking dinner.

Dinner at 5:20 PM consisted of 6 inch, micro wave pizza; and spaghetti with butter and garlic sauce and spaghetti and tomato sauce; plus Parmesan cheese. Someone on the crew couldn't have spaghetti with tomato sauce (Joel) so the chef (me) had to improvise. Dessert? You guessed it, chilled fruit cocktail. Cooking dinner tonight was the most dangerous mean of the trip so far, due to the large and irregular waves and a large pot of boiling water for the spaghetti. Even though the stove is gimbaled, its still a delicate situation to cook in 10 foot seas.

After dinner big storm clouds surrounded the boat. The clouds were shaped like a horseshoe, with us in the middle; and were behind us heading our way, from the east. However, all of these rain clouds spent themselves before getting to our boat.

Sent and received emails via our SSB radio after sunset. Got some encouraging news in that Erik from Sailors Wharf had sent me an email indicating that he was in the process of ordering the main sheet traveler car we needed and then shipping it to my agent in Tahiti.

The moon rise at 8:50 PM was spectacular as it rose thru the clouds behind the boat, our of the east. Large, too.

Because our boat speed was under 6 or 6.5 knots, like yesterday, we had to run the generator for a few hours to charge our batteries. The hydro generator and wind turbine can't supply enough energy with our boat and wind speed too low.

Brian Fox

Previous | Next