Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 5

Day 5 actually started out at night. We decided to sail through the night, and since we were out in the ocean, the Monitor would steer us on our course. We were sailing along at 2-3 knots, so I felt it safe to do a good lookout every hour since we also had the AIS proximity alarm turned on. Most of the vessels out in the ocean at night are commercial and all of them broadcast and AIS signal.

Maddie can't nap. If she puts her head down to sleep, it will take her a long time to fall asleep, and once she is out, she stays asleep for hours. This makes keeping a watch schedule practically impossible. As I come off watch, she would stay asleep!

Instead, I get up at regular intervals to check our surroundings based on our speed. If we are moving quickly, the lookouts are much more often, but if we are moving slowly, then the lookouts can be further spaced out.

Sailing at 2 knots, I felt it was safe to check every hour. This meant that I was climbing in and out of bed every hour for the entire night. When the sun came up, I was exhausted and needed to sleep for a few hours without being disturbed.

We puttered along under storm sails on another perfect day, because we knew that there was a storm south of us, and we needed to stop soon.

Sailing through the night and not sleeping seems pointless when you then have to slow down when the sun rises because you can't go that far today!

Early in the afternoon, we stopped and hove to as we waited for the storm to approach. This storm is starting today (Sunday) and going to last until Wednesday. That's right, Sunday night, all of Monday, all of Tuesday, and into Wednesday afternoon.

Our goal for today was simply to sail away from land to give ourselves plenty of seaway to drift in. This would let us safely heave to and ride out the storm.

As the sun set, the winds began to increase. Wisdom, our sailboat, nestled into her slick as she began to drift laterally through the water. This will be our life for the next few days, so we better get used to it!

As the waves build, sloshing increases, but oddly enough, the heeling doesn't. The trysail spills the wind and merely steadies us as we float up and down over the waves as they come at us, calmed by our slick to windward.

Tonight will be a lumpy night, but at least I wont have to get up every hour to check our position and heading. All we need to do is drift through the storm so we can get on with making way to the Bahamas!

Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 4

The winds today were perfect! We were on a broad to beam reach, in 8 to 10 knots of breeze as we zipped along with fair winds and following seas. Our Monitor windvane steered us perfectly and flawlessly as we traveled through the water.

Every few hours, I would check our course, as the windvane steers us at an angle to the wind and no to a magnetic heading. As the wind shifts, so do we. This requires constant vigilance, as small wind shifts can lead to small deviations from the intended course.

I found that checking every 3 hours proved to be adequate, as the ocean is big, and if we sailed a few degrees to port or starboard, it didn't really matter in the end!

The whole day was spent under full sail as we listened to the waves whoosh past our hull.

As the afternoon befell us, cirrus clouds started to populate the sky. We decided to reef down as the sun was setting, since these clouds started to fill the sky, all emanating out of a massive cloud to the west of us.

As the sun went below the horizon, the winds started to build and we decided that instead of a 3rd reef, we should simply put up the trysail.

This tiny storm sail is flown in lieu of the moansail and removes the boom from the equation. This makes jiving stress free but it does make it hard to sail to windward.

We only put up the trysail if we plan on heaving to or sailing off the wind.

The wind was blowing in the right direction and we decided to sail through the night. The Monitor was steering beautifully under staysail and trysail, and the wind had picked up enough to move us along at 2-3 knots! We figured that if we sailed through the night, we would gain an extra 20 nautical miles south towards the Bahamas!

This plan was good in theory, but that's as far as the good went.

Trimming Your Sails on the Ocean

While tell tales will let you know how to trim your sail for peak performance, ignoring them for the sake of comfort may also be wise. Having poorly trimmed sails will cost you some speed, but the peace and tranquility it brings could be worth it to you.

When sailing downwind in light winds, the main steals a lot of air from the headsails. If you have the sheets on the headsails eased, these sails will lift with wind and then slat as you come down a swell. When the sail falls, so does the tension on the sheet. The sheet block will then fall onto the deck and make quite a bit of noise.

Being how the wave period in the Atlantic is around 8 seconds, this means that every 8 seconds you will hear a "TWANG!" on the deck. Do this for an entire day and you might go crazy!

In situations like this, you are faced with two options:

1. Either drop the headsail so it stops slating.
2. Over tighten the sheet to avoid it from going limp.

When you drop the sail, you lose all of that sail area entirely and unbalance your sail plan. This is far from ideal, especially on a broad reach, where you need the headsails to provide lee helm.

Over tightening the sheets will keep the noise from happening, but it will make your sails less efficient. This might cost you a fraction of a knot in light airs.

If you are deaf, or willing to put up with the noise for the small amount of speed gained, then by all means, trim based on the tell tales. If you prefer peace and comfort, then it would behoove you to over tighten the sheets and keep the peace inside the cabin.

AIS CPA Alarm

AIS is a wonderful invention that allows your radio to display all the vital information of any other vessel that is broadcasting AIS.

This changes a night time encounter from plain navigational lights to something more useful, like the vessels name, speed, and heading. With this information, the computer in the radio can also calculate how close you will come and when this will occur.

Closest Point of Approach (CPA) is very helpful. It will tell you if that ship on the horizon is going to be a problem, or if they will stay far away. Best of all, some radios have alarm features, so if a ship will come too close, it will sound a very loud audible alarm to bring the situation to your attention.

We usually set the alarm to 2 nautical miles when we heave to at night. This gives us plenty of time to wake up from the alarm and rectify the situation. Two years ago, when we set out into the Atlantic, the other ships were very courteous, always responding when hailed and being more than accommodating  to avoid a collision.

This year though, it seems that no one wants to answer. We have done a radio check, and other boats far away can hear me loud and clear, but they just seem to play the silent game.

Seeing a massive tanker approach you at 20 knots can be a bit unnerving, especially when you are hove to with no wind to move you if you needed to. At night, I have found one tactic that seems to get an instant response when words fail: a strobe spot light.

You know, those "tactical flashlights" that they sell with the high powered LED light and focusing lens. These things are bright! I simply shine it in their position and then up at the sails. Then when I go below deck to check the AIS display, they have inevitably changed course and steered away from a collision course.

This alarm does not replace a good watch schedule, as not all vessels transmit AIS, but it does alleviate the anxiety of wondering if you are going to bump into someone while you sleep between watches.

Dolphins

Out in the ocean, one of our favorite creatures to encounter are dolphins. These majestic mammals seem to always have fun as they play around in the water. You will see one jump out of the water, and then two, and then five! It seems like they want to play follow the leader as they bound through the waves.

Then all of a sudden, the dolphins disappear for a few minutes and you might be thinking that the show is over. All of a sudden, the entire pod will jump out of the water at the same time! It almost looks like they were playing a game where they all hold their breath and then surface in synchronized fashion!

While we may be the dominant species on land, killing any creature that opposes us, they are at home on the ocean, and we are merely meek visitors into their realm.