|
 We
are deep into the second day of Gale Force winds. We have seen as much as 60
knot gusts. But mostly we have been seeing 40-50 knots winds until today. We
are now seeing 30-40 knot winds with gusts up to 45 and occasionally 50 knots.
The seas are up around 20 feet now and PRIDE II is being lurched around like it
was a bucking bronco riding machine in some western bar.
Life aboard has been pretty uncomfortable. But everyone
aboard is responding to all the needs as they come with a good natured will.
There have been some splashes of sea water getting below and anyone around
jumps-to and lends a hand cleaning up. This is no easy thing to do as the
motion below during PRIDE II's corkscrewing, heaving, pitching, rolling and
jolting from the seas affects human movement, simple or complex.
 On
deck the watch is spent doing as much hanging on as those below, but one is
wearing fowl weather gear and safety harnesses as well. We have not been
getting many seas on deck, but it does happen. Much of the times it is merely
ankle deep water that comes aboard via the scuppers. Sometimes it is knee deep
as water is scooped up by one bulwark or another during a deep roll. There is
the odd collision with a wave and spray bursts over one part of the ship or
another. Occasionally there is a ton of water that literally sweeps aboard over
the bulwark and cascades around like a mini tsunami on its way back to whence it
came. Then there has been rain and the odd snow squall. Yep. We have seen
snow fall three or four times during those times the wind has been out of the
North and West. The temperatures that produce the snow are air temperatures.
So the stuff melts on contact. On one occasion we had "sea smoke" during one of
these cold wind squalls caused by the warmer sea water temperature the cold air
contacted, presenting us with a rather mystical scene.
My navigational routing strategy has not proved to me to
be good or bad. I had hoped we could avoid this heavy weather. But at least we
are making speed and generally in a good direction. My current concern is where
to plan to go for this week. We are currently turned east and south as a means
of gaining some distance from the "complex" low to our north. But we can't
afford to keep going in this direction for long. So I expect to jibe over again
and head northeasterly in a day or so, if not sooner. Meanwhile the gale
strength winds we have I think will diminish some as time goes by and we get a
little further south from the low lying to our north. This, by the way, is
essentially the same low that I have been dodging since the day we departed
Annapolis.
Technically it is not the same low. But it is certainly
the low that chased us up the East Coast to the Canadian Maritimes and stalled
there off the coast, only later to drift east while we chased it. Then it
drifted north as we came by to the south. Now it is dithering up north of us,
actually forecast to go west some before heading east again. While it is to the
north dithering in place, we can't head north without risking getting into
northeasterly winds. So we go east. But when it finally heads east, as
forecast, it could position itself to prevent us from going north. Forecast The
weather forecast to which I have access does not go out more than 96 hours. So
it is hard to figure out what to do short of taking care of the ship and crew.
We will know in a week if I should have kept going north and east rather than
east and south.
We had an adventure on board just before the winds
came. We were setting sail and turning off the engines when for some reason we
noticed there was a lobster pot marker dragging on PRIDE II's rudder. After some
evaluation, I asked for a volunteer to dive on the hitch-hiker and cut it away.
Josh came forward with uncertain eyes but a willingness to try. So we hove
PRIDE II to the wind and Josh got ready to go over the stern with a knife. We
had more than a few lines over the stern and there was most of the crew on
stand-by to help haul Josh back aboard at any time. The water was cold at 50¡
F. Josh chose to wear nothing but his shorts. I found this impressive as I
once did this as a young man and wore a light fowl weather jacket tied off at
the wrists and the waist to help reduce my body heat loss rate. But Josh felt
it would only get in his way and over he went. It took a while for him to gain
control of his breathing. But once he had that controlled, he was down and back
up and being hauled aboard in less than a minute while the offending item
floated away.
Sail handling during the onset of high winds is a
challenge at the best of times. We started off with quite a bit of sail up. As
the wind strength increased, the crew attended to various sail reduction
exercises throughout the day. First it was taking in the main-gaff-topsail.
Then it was reefing the mainsail once. All this was done to reduce the
"pushing" of the boat that occurs with the wind aft. Then it was time to take a
second reef in the mainsail. Then we put a reef in the square topsail. This
required taking the sail in and sending crew aloft to tie in the reef, then
resetting the sail. Soon after that, it was time to take in the mainsail
altogether, followed by putting a reef in the foresail. This was interrupted by
a rapid increase in the wind and a rapid taking in and stowing of the reefed
foretopsail, the jib, and then the staysail which we replaced with the storm
jib. Then we finished reefing the foresail. From start to finish this was an
all daylight affair. It started out slow as we only did what was necessary.
But from early afternoon when the mainsail was taken in altogether till late
afternoon, there was constant rush of work. But when all was done, the ship was
ready for her sail in upwards of 60 knots of wind.
Jibing the foresail today was a complex affair in winds
of 40 knots with gusts of almost 50 knots. To keep from breaking anything, we
needed to lower the peak of the gaff a great deal. With a loose footed sail
this also lowers the clew. So we had to lift the sail up so the jibe could
occur without taking out any deck gear. It took two hours of fooling around
with the on-watch scrambling around. In the end, the foresail was not fully
hoisted as it seemed to me the wear and tear was more than the benefit. So the
reefed foresail remains with its tack "triced-up" for the benefit of moving
around the deck and not having a huge blind spot. All of this got done without
bothering the off-watch except for the new motion and the resultant shift of
gear below.
Cheers,
Captain Miles |
