Atlantic crossing - week one
Nov 16
Woohoo, and we're off. Finally our departure day and it's a perfect sunny morning with light northerlies. We said our goodbyes, lots of hugs and kisses to all the new friends we have made and look forward to seeing them all soon enough in martinique.
We headed out for the start and hoisted the parasailor for the downwind start about 2 miles upwind to time the start perfectly. We crossed close to the start boat packed with the Cornell sailing team and lanzarote officials and were first across the line...perfect! We even beat the starting gun by about 20 seconds :)
Nov 17
Some good but slow sailing. Almost did a circumnavigation of gran canaria as the wind shifted us around. Trying to get away from the island before the forecast low with 5m swell and 35K westerlies arrive...
Nov 18
Some motor sailing, a bit slow against currents tang are supposed to be going gone other way. Oh well, had a yummy pet dinner and all well on board Sephina.
Nov 19
The magical silence
Today I heard the magical silence I first heard when I was around age 13, sailing my first catamaran, an Arafura Cadet named Bobcat II. It was an 11' sloop rig plywood cat and they had a fleet of 8 or so competing at the local lake yacht club. So I forked out $150 or so of my hard earned paper round money and was now the proud owner of my very first cat. Bobcat was the oldest and definitely not the prettiest of the fleet. She had been handed down few a few generations by the previous owners and somwhere along the line an all over fibreglass coating was added to the hulls, which also added considerably to her weight. She was all original, with timber cross beams and timber deck, probably around 20 yrs old at the time. Most of get other AC's at the club were newer with mesh trampolines and aluminium cross beams
Anyway, she mightn't have been the fastest cat in the fleet, but she was definitely mine !
As with just about every boat I've owned first thing to do is, strip it back, fix it, repaint it and relaunch, which I promptly did after applying some handcut name decals from contact. A mate of dads gave me some great tips on how to criss cross the handbrushed paintwork to achieve a pro gloss finish ( that actually worked !)
Anyway, many great days sailing were spent on the lake with Bobcat II, racing and learning to sail like I had always dreamed of while sitting on the magazine counter in Mum and Dads news agency after closing hours, reading all the latest sailing magazines over and over. Cruising helmsman, wooden boat builder, you name it, I read it cover to cover while savouring the odd stolen fruit tingle.
So it was on Bobcat II I first heard that 'magical silence'
It's the sound, or rather the lack of sound, you experience just as the windward hull lifts clear of the water and the stress and strain of it forcing through the water seems to drift away in a magical silent sigh.
You are leaning out, hiking hard with your feet under the toe straps, angling forward and everything is balance perfectly. The rustle of the water against the hull stops and there it is..the magical silence...
Other times I've experienced this sound are when kiteboarding, there's a lot of sound as you fly across the water but the instant you kick and flick the board skyward all vanish except the wind in your ears.
So, back to the point.Today I heard the silence as I lay in my bunk for the first time in days trying to get a couple of hours sleep. The last days have been busy sailing and I've mainly been napping in the cockpit between watches.
As I lay there I noticed the usual sound of the waves slapping the hull had diminished and become more like trickles, and gradually they disappeared all together. It was like Sephina was sighing, flying a hull..
I knew Jen was at the helm, enjoying trimming her for maximum speed, and she was doing around 7 Knots in the 15 knot breeze, so hearing the silence, not just for a second, but for minutes at a time, in dispersed with the occasional splash was truly magical....
Nov 20
Well the predicted swells and wind have arrived finally and mid morning it was too tough to sail or motor into so we foreached North to make the motion as gentle as possible and not lose too much ground to the southeast. Winds are higher than forecast with 35K plus gusts. So much for an easy trade wind sail! We let out a handkerchief amount of jib and lashed the wheel hard over and Sephina sat quit well in the swells, slowly sailing upwind at about 2K and at a slight angle to the waves. We crashed about like that for most of the day till later the wind turned a bit more northerly so we managed to proceed again toward the SW. Only 75M covered at an average of 3K. All a little seasick...
A good experience and Sephina took it all in stride but not something any of us would care to repeat often...
Nov 21
Wow, great days sailing. I'm about to finish my 1200-0300 watch and there a gentle breeze from the North pushing us along at five knots over a 'finally' calm sea. The seasickness is also finally subsiding and I enjoyed eating a real meal for the first time in days, pasta with broccoli, compliments from Aviad the chef.
Nov 22
A good fast days sail, probably close to 200 miles which can get pretty tiring.
I'm tired. I'm fine with my watches and usually crash out soon after my 1200-0300 watch but the problem is I wake an hour or two later and struggle to fall asleep again at all during the day. I'm really really looking forward to a 6 hr sleep to feel totally refreshed...
Jen is loving her sunset and sunrise watches and the dolphins come to visit her most mornings. She says she can hear them talking to her as well.
Nov 23
Nice days sail under parasailor in 15-20k NE again. We have covered about 1/3 of the distance in 7 1/2 days as the distance to Martinique just clicked over to 2000 miles at midnight as Olga and I sat on watch. That's pretty good going considering the slow start with a fair bit of motoring and dealing with the low pressure system. Now average boat speeds are around 7 K and tonight we were surfing between 9 and 11 knots which is a buzz! The time to Martinique as showing on the plotter at around 10 days and Olga and I were both saying that's too fast. We have too many books to read and food to eat before we arrive. Plus higher speeds mean more attention to watching the course and sail trim and being prepared to deal with de powering the sail quickly. 6-7 K is more relaxed, especially at night.
Nov 24
A little too much excitement..
At around 0200 with rising winds we decided we needed to drop the parasailor. Wind was a steady 25K gusting to 30K and the squalls weren't showing any sign of letting up. Add to that some unpredictable surfing at 12K and the autopilot fighting hard to keep us on course, so Aviad and I prepared to drop it. It was a difficult drop, partly because I neglected to release the lazy sheet so there was a bit of tension on the sail keeping it filled. Jen heard me yelling above the wind to Aviad and came to assist us and we managed to recover it unharmed. The parasailor was flapping around like a cut pig as Aviad and I finally wrestled it on deck and into it's bag Jen said the plotter was showing 38K...ouch!
The cooler damp night air has about 30% more power than the daytime air due to the added density. We really feel the difference as Sephina is comfortably cruising at 7-8K in a daytime 20K, but easily adds 2K boat speed in the denser night time 20K winds.
After they we toddled along under jib only at 5-6K for the rest of the night and re raised the parasailor in the morning to have a nice sail all day averaging 6.5K
Tonight we will probably drop the parasailor before the evening winds get too strong and relax again with just the jib overnight. It looks wet and squally ahead and it's easier on everyone to keep watch as well as sleep if speeds are lower and just the jib to take care of...
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