Raritan - Raritan – 11/27/18 – Day Three

The weather continued to be excellent on Tuesday. The winds are 15-20 from the NE. Raritan is continuing to sail for our turning waypoint at 20N 25W. We are gybing since we can not sail low enough to point straight for the waypoint. We are beginning to see large, long swells coming in from the NW. These are combining with the smaller waves from the NE to create a fairly confused sea state.
The crew is getting along well, however the watches seem longer and more fatiguing as we are running out of the initial nervous energy on the voyage. No one has been seasick, and everyone seems healthy. There is some frustration that Raritan can not sail lower angles. The boats we run across are few and far between, but most are smaller than we are, in the 45 -55 foot range, so we should be faster. We remind ourselves that we are still learning….
In the afternoon the winds built to 18-22 knots and Raritan performed well with a full main and genoa. We set a boat speed record of 12.4 knots with the help of a large wave! Dinner was meatloaf, green beans, and rice, once again eaten very appreciatively! After dinner the off-watch crew enjoyed a screening of the classic ‘breaking away” before retiring.
We dropped the genoa and used the jib to depower the boat through the evening. Night fell with a late moonrise and partial cloud cover, so it was very dark once again. The confused seas continued through the night and made steering a steady course a challenge. It also made for poor sleeping conditions, and our off watch rests are not as deep as they used to be.
In the early morning, the wind was gusting over 20 and we decided to reef the main. In the process of setting up the reef, we experienced an accidental gybe that was strong enough to break the preventer. The force of the gybe was terrifying, but no one was near the boom and no damage was apparent. We tucked in two reefs and continued on our way.
Doug