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Sweet Dream - Day 246 September 16, 2019



The absolute worst day of this passage. Here we are anticipating a lovely run into Lombok and we are met with squall after squall after squall. No rain, just erratic fluky, changing wind. At 07:30 we switched the pole and boom....put out the sails...wind changed to 120 degeees starbrd side. We took down the pole put the Genoa on the port side....wind heaved and swelled and backed round behind us...we put the pole in the starbrd side, put the Genoa on the pole. The dang wind stopped all together. We motored with sails up...we motored with sails down. The wind flipped to the other side. We moved the boom and the pole. We sailed with every single conceivable sail combination a cutter rig can offer on every point of sail....even close hauled with waves breaking over the bow. The single , most, miserable 36 hours of the entire WARC journey. We had been told in the skipper’s briefing that the Atlas straight had a big current in it, and to make sure we entered in on a RISING tide. Oy Vey! What idiots we were to take this at face value! I worked very hard to make sure we arrived at the BEGINNING OF THE rising TiDE! Captain refused to take the 90 minute difference of time into consideration...and between that fatal error and the WRONG information to enter the straight at rising tide, we were in a major contrary current in the Atlas Straight. The absolute worse five hours of our WARC journey commenced at 17:15 when we crossed the finish line and entered the Atlas Straight. We tried to run against the current that was stronger than our 100 hp yanmar engine. To no avail. We were literally spinning in a maelstrom of huge water ! 30 tons of full keel boat are no match for a super moon spring tide in the Atlas Straight! I tried to ask Captain to turn around and run out until the tide turned. He refused. There was a boat ahead to “ keep up with” and a boat behind to “ keep ahead of” ! So much for NOT RACING! Oy VEY. It was almost a mutiny! After the miserable one hour on ,one hour off , hand steering making a half a knot an hour nightmare for five hours barely missing rock formations , we finally broke through the opposing current at about 23:00 hours. Thereafter we did two hour shifts. Very necessary because on top of all the stupid wind and current fluctuations, there were dozens of small, unlit local fishing boats working in pairs dragging nets between them to avoid. Not to mention the local, two an hour ferry and cargo ships. Plus itinerant “ pleasure boats” not following any set track. It was worse than the Panama Canal approach for stress and traffic! Finally dawn broke, and we could SEE the local fish boats...scores of them....very unnerving after a sleepless night! Worse night ever!


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