Sunday April 18, Day-3 Forgot it was Sunday, Dan made eggs for breakfast. We’ll have pancakes tomorrow.
It’s a spinnaker kind of day. Wind 8-11 knots. We took her down at sunset, it’s safer not to fly a spinnaker at night with one person awake. We did leave the pole up and attached it to the clew of the Genoa.
*Iridium Go Notes*
Asymmetrical Spinnaker on the Pole
Sun 18/Apr 12:34 GMT-10
17º 01.548 S 153º 31.337 W
Course: 283° true, 4.6 kts
Sailed/Motored 123 miles during our second 24 hours.
When the sun came-up this morning, the Asymmetrical Spinnaker went-up too, tacked on to the end of the Spinnaker Pole, which is pulled back, since we are sailing at 150 degrees apparent (broad reaching). If we had a symmetrical spinnaker, then it would be up instead. We should be able to sail the spinnaker until nighttime, then we take it down for safety, since it’s a little complicated to take down at night.
Winds are calm 8-10 knots, seas are also calm … yet rough enuf to make the mainsail bang back-n-forth annoyingly!
We are clear of all the islands now, only wide open water 360 degrees around us. Nice to see the sunset into the ocean in front of us, then later rise-up out of the ocean behind us.
Cleaned-up all the boat fenders (bumpers) today, which dangling along the side of the boat while at marinas… now they look new again!
You can’t take your eye off her
Mon 19/Apr 00:32 GMT-10
17º 11.259 S 154º 21.376 W
Course: 246° true, 4.6 kts
So we’re having a nice dinner in the cockpit and afterwards we planned to take down the spinnaker, which has been flying beautifully since sunrise.
Apparently there was a slight wind shift, the spinnaker silently collapsed and wrapped herself several times around the furled-up genoa. Ugh… you can’t take your eye off her!
It took about 20 minutes to get her down and stuffed in the bag. She is still all tangled-up in the bag, which we’ll sort-out in the daylight, and maybe put her back up to work again.
We jibed the mainsail over, now on port tack and unfurled the genoa for the night. Sailing downwind along nicely, the wind speed building up to 13 knots.
Another dark star filled night with patches of clouds, but no rain in sight.
The radar on the boat has been
working well for detecting rain showers around us. Typically, if there’s rain, then there’s an increase in the wind speed.
Sailing Trance 