Sunsets

While sunsets over the water are gorgeous, there is something special about seeing a new sunset on a distant shore, far from your home. 

You get off your boat and walk around the new landscape all day, lost in your mind as you aimlessly wander about, taking in the scenery as it unfolds before you. 

Then the sun gets low on the horizon and the sky turns into a blaze of fire, and the wet sand on the beach matches it in shimmer and beauty! You quickly get out your camera to snap a few pictures as the moment displays its beauty before you and you think to yourself "I'm here!" 

Sailing will take you far and away, and each day, you will watch the sun set as you relax in the cockpit as you await your next landfall. Sunsets over water are gorgeous, as the sea and sky begin to glow the same color and the horizon transforms into a singular radiance of beauty; but a sunset over a new land brings new meaning to the entire voyage. 

Standing on a beach as you watch the shadows stretch out on the sand lets you know that you made it here and all those days at sea were worth it! 

Cruising to the Bahamas: Hove To

Heaving to is a tried and true storm survival method. Notice I say storm "survival" and not storm "comfort". That is because there is nothing comfortable about being in a storm!

The waves built to around 20 feet with a period of 8 seconds. This means that every 8 seconds involved us dropping 20 feet and then climbing back up 20 feet. Imagine being on a massive roller coaster for 3 days, and you don't have a special seat with a harness. Instead, you are trying to sleep on the roller coaster, walk around on the roller coaster, even go to the bathroom on the roller coaster!

Cabinets would open by accident and the contents would pour out. The best thing to do at this point was to shut the cabinet and not put whatever fell out back in because opening the cabinet to stow what fell would risk having everything else also fall out on the next wave.

The inside of the boat became a disaster as we were constantly tossed around. Maddie was too seasick to eat, and I didn't feel like eating since that involved getting tossed around the cabin like a rag doll.

While the slick did calm breaking waves down into rolling swell, it only worked on the waves that were approaching from the direction of the wind. Rogue waves which travel their own path do not come from the direction of the wind and are therefore able to sidestep the slick and slam right into us. One most notable of waves came at us diagonally and crashed into the starboard bow with a massive wall of water and the crest of the wave travelled over the boat, coming down on the port deck. It basically looked like a surfer in the green tube!

While we remained safe inside the boat, we did have some issues arise that precluded us from continuing our journey to the Bahamas. Our hatches are rather old and appear to have a few minor leaks. When it rains a simple towel will suffice to collect any water that seeps through the hatch. Three days of rain and breaking waves on the hatch meant that our bed became completely soaked in salt water. Not only was our bed wet, but there was no way it would dry anytime soon.

We also suffered some damage to the boat from the breaking waves and felt that it would behoove us to seek a safe harbor to carry out the repairs.

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.