Day 123, Year 11: Day Four, Passage to Little River—Sail Changes
Date: Monday, February 22, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Hi 70’s, Low 50’s, Wind S 8-10, Seas 1-2 ft
Latitude: 32 03.067 N
Longitude: 080 34.112 W
Location: Motor Sailing Along GA Coast—Just N of Savannah
Total Miles Traveled: 351 nautical miles (4:30 pm)
Today was all about sail changes to try and give us the fastest speed possible. We made good time overnight and Little River is within reach tomorrow night (Tuesday), but either after dark or in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. We tried everything to boost the speed today, but 5.8 to 6.0 knots is the best we can do with 10 knots of wind directly behind us and an engine that heats up if we push it beyond 2200 RPMs. We started the morning by putting out the spinnaker, with the spinnaker and main on the same side. Then we tried wing and wing with the spinnaker poled out to one side and the main vanged out to the other side. The changes went on and on. We have ended up with all sails flying but we get a fair amount of sail slapping as the seas are no longer like a lake. The swell is just 1-2 feet, but that’s enough to roll us a bit when the wind dips below 10 knots and the rolling slows us down. It looks like we will lose the wind altogether tonight, so unless we get a boost from the current, we will slow down quite a bit. If that is the case, it will probably be the middle of the night when we reach the Little River inlet, but we have a good track to follow and we’ll use our spotlight to locate the markers. There is a fuel dock just before Lightkeepers Marina and we are thinking we might just tie to that until daylight and then enter the marina. Of course, if we check the weather in the morning and there is a big change, our plan to go inside at Charleston might be back on the docket. As always, the weather rules.
 |
| 160222 Day 123 Passage to LR–Spinnaker Sail |
