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.

Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 3

At dawn, I raised our anchor and we began drifting out of the mouth with the slight wind that was present. I quickly got the sails up and set to get us as far from land as fast as possible, but there was no wind!

We simply bobbed around as we drifted along with the waves out to sea.

The Monitor windvane did all the work for me. I knew that the winds were going to start out from the East and shift to be coming from the North, so I set the monitor and the sails for a broad reach. As the wind shifted, so did our path and we effortlessly and slowly made our way from land.

We sailed out beyond the entrances to the shipping channels that enter the Chesapeake Bay, so commercial traffic was not an issue as we were always outside of the channel.

While the sail was slow, the spectacles were far from it. We saw a massive school of jellyfish that were just below the surface, drifting along on the ocean currents. While this was interesting, it paled in comparison to the pod of dolphins that we encountered.

We were 7 miles out at sea at this point, and these dolphins were playing around in the waves like children playing in the surf on a beach. It reminded us that we are in their home, and they live here. We are merely visitors.

The winds were light, so we decided to make the most of them and sail through the night since the Monitor had been doing such a good job and we hadn't touched a thing all day. This was a sound plan, but the winds did not agree. As the sun set, the winds disappeared. Our plans to sail through the night quickly vanished and we were forced to heave to through the night.