Teacher Aboard Logs

Date:	November 20   2320 hrs
Position:	Atlantic Ocean heading for Cape Hatteras Latitude: 33:25.8 N    Longitude: 74:22.7 W
Conditions:	Winds: 21 knots NW    Barometric Pressure: 1019.0    Skies: cloudy
Entered By:	Teacher Aboard Lee Vogtman

Hi there! It's now November 22 and I've updated this log twice now due to the weather. I hope to send it out this afternoon. Needless to say, things aren't going our way right now. So let's see how this all started.

Well, so much for getting home early! We had great winds, good boat speed, and were heading in the right direction. The crew had a pool and was taking bets as to when each of us thought we'd arrive at the Chesapeake Bay tunnel. In my optimism, I declared my guess to be Tuesday, November 21, 2000 at 1030 hours. Right. Needless to say, I won't win! So what happened? Well, a front had blown across the U.S. and we were fortunate (in the beginning) to catch the south-by-west winds which pushed us along to the tune of a 10 knot average. In the photo, you can see how much the vessel is heeling by looking at the horizon. Look at everybody's stance; they're all leaning.

Before we knew it, the winds were gusting to 25 and 30 knots, so we took down the tops'l. The tops'l is controlled by a series of lines that drop in front of the fore mast. The lines are all pulled which collapses the sail. But when it's full, this becomes very difficult. The other requirement is that the sail be secured. You may recall pictures I've posted in previous logs of six crewmembers standing aloft doing just that. Since it was dark and hands were needed elsewhere, only Brad and John went aloft and spent almost an hour in the howling winds getting the job done. Here's a shot of the same procedure, during the day. Now imagine being that far up at night!

Finally the sail was taken care of and the two crewmembers made it safely back down. In the meantime, the captain decided to put the third reef in the mainsail. So we lowered the main a bit, tied down the reef, and hoisted it back up. Still, we were going too fast and the winds were not letting up, so we took the main completely down. We had the main down for about 15 minutes when the winds decided to slack off! Jeesh! So.....up went the main again - with three reefs in her for safety's sake! What a night! Our watch was supposed to end at 2000 hrs, but we wound up going below at 2145 to eat our dinner. Oh well, such is life at sea! Still, we had been going in the right direction. Unfortunately, during the night the winds shifted and came at us out of the north. Yikes, what a long night it was for the crew.

The wind was gusting hard all night long. Once, an extremely strong gust pushed the boat over so much that the top of the rail was in the water! Yikes. I took this photo this morning to show you the current seastate and remind you of where the top of the rail is. See the lifelines woven above the rail?

We couldn't sail into the wind, so the boat was headed off into a new direction - one we didn't want to pursue! When I came on watch the next afternoon, we were headed southwest, and we wanted to go north! Suddenly, we were actually a few miles farther from home than we had been the same time on the day before! Arrrrrrghhh! Luckily, it looked like the wind might come around again. Sure enough, while I was at the helm we were able to start shifting our course back to a more desirable one. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So, now we're on the right track and we may not be home early, but we might actually be on time! Who knows, I'm not making any more predictions!

Life On Board Things on board have been pretty much the same. The crew did an emergency drill, timing how long it took for everybody to don an "immersion suit." This suit is designed to keep a person alive when adrift at sea for any reason. Every person on board has a suit like this and a life jacket within reach. The suits are bulky but well worth it.

Maintenance still takes place everywhere, (whew! what a lot of work it requires to keep this boat maintained!), but the crew still manages to find the time for other distractions. Dayle went aloft to take pictures. You can see the studs'l out to her right side. This was taken two days ago, before we sailed into the front. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but Dayle was wearing shorts. Well, that was the last day for shorts as it has gotten quite cool now. Woolen underwear and foul weather gear is the call from here on in.

I'll bet I know what you're asking yourself right now. You're thinking, "Okay, they're within two days or so of port. So whatever happened to that 'Ditty Bag' thing he was going to make and share with us?" Well, I'm so glad you asked that question! As it turns out, I was able to finish my bag the same day Dayle was crawling aloft with her camera! So let's take a look at my first attempt at a "Ditty Bag."