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American Spirit II - Day 302; The Fleet Gets Hammered by Strong Winds; Monday, November 3, 2014



I relieve Jeremy at 6:27 AM, and turn the engine off. The wind is 12/13 and and we're moving at 5.5 knots thru the water and 6.7 knots over the land. We're sailing. Yeah! Its partly cloudy, with a rain squall to leeward. I shake 1 reef out of the mainsail. No reefs in the main and jib now. Polaris is 1/2 miles off our port stern and gaining on us. The wind is on the starboard beam, a rarity on our trip where its usually on the port side.

At 7:05 AM I put 3 fishing lines in the water: one reel and two hand lines.

Polaris passes us to port at 7:30 AM. Bye bye. They're a much bigger

Laurie on Nexus hosts the 9:00 AM net. We can't hear her but Ghost relays for us.

Breakfast at 9:30 AM consists of eggs, potato, chilled fruit cocktail and bread.

At 10:30 AM we put 1/2 reef in the main.

At 11:00 AM the wind is 13/14 and we're moving at 6.4 knots thru the water and 7.0 knots over the land.

We're no longer in the 'trade wind belt,' which is not good. We're now dependent on weather systems coming off of Africa. Variable, with low pressure systems being thrown at us twice per week. These lows can have gale force winds. Bummer. Besides these lows we have super high pressure systems to deal with; called 'anti-cyclones' by the South African pamphlet I just read. The winds along these high pressure systems are very high. We dealt with something similar when we were in Australia. Not fun.

Our noon position is 24 degrees, 29 minutes South; 50 degrees, 43 minutes East; and we're 250 miles from our turning waypoint and 1029 miles from Richard's Bay, South Africa.

At 1:20 PM I hear a radio report from Chicka-lu to Ghost and Alpheratz about incoming weather. They report that the temperature is dropping a lot and that the wind is clocking (or was it backing?). We feel cooler air starting at 1:40 PM. Clouds are moving in. We put a full reef in the mainsail and 1 reef in the jib. The wind is 11 knots. The calm before the storm. The barometer is 1014. Rain hits us at 2:25 PM. A 1,000 foot freighter passing our port side disappears in a rain shower a couple of miles away. At 2:45 PM Ghost calls us and tell us that the winds are now 25 knots; and that the front is coming our way. They are 10 miles ahead of us. We put a 2nd reef in the mainsail and roll in more jib. It's quiet. The wind starts to increase at 3:01 PM. The sky ahead of us is pitch black. We roll the jib all the way up. And wait. Alpheratz says that they have a 3rd reef in their mainsail and are sailing at 8.5 to 9.0 knots.

At 3:47 PM the wind is a steady 28 knots. Jeremy is sitting in the aft area of the cockpit watching the wind gauge. It tops out at 37 knots; with a steady 30-35 knots for an hour or so. Gale force winds. Isn't this fun?! Our Rally and Passage Weather forecasts missed this one, I guess. Or is it just a day early?

Laurie form Nexus hosts the 6:00 PM net. Even the boats a day ahead of us have the same wind we have. Not good. Means that this will be with us for a while.

Dinner at 6:30 PM is freeze dried Rice with Chicken; greens beans; and chilled pear halves.

Between 7:00 PM and 8:30 PM Joel, on watch, gets hit by two large slapper waves. One sends water over the dodger and bimini. I'm napping and have a hard time sleeping because a snatch block on the starboard side of the boat is banging. First time in 10 months this has happened.

I relieve Joel early at 8:40 PM and the first thing we do is take the noisy snatch block off the rail. At 9:25 PM the wind is 22/23 and we're moving at 5.4 knots thru the water and 6.7 knots over the land. The wind is howling in the rigging. It's wavy and there's 2/3rds of a moon showing. It's also cold. I'm wearing pants, foul weather pants, a long sleeved shirt, a pullover, a foul weather jacket and my cap. And I'm still cold. Our flag on the stern is no longer there, as I find out later that a grommet got torn out at the top of it. That feisty wind!

During my watch we get rounded up into the wind once. A BIG round up. The mainsail luffs, then the wind catches the mainsail and slams the boom to the starboard. It's a gigantic boom. More of those and the traveler block will explode, meaning no mainsail. I crank in more mainsheet so it won't do that again. When Joel gets up at midnight we'll put the preventer back on and that will take care of the problem.

I hear Ghost talking to a 1,000 foot freighter about a possible collision. The ship finally changes course. The radio operator doesn't speak English well, so it takes about a half hour to sort things out.

Brian Fox

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