Day 115, Year 6 Atlantic Passage, Day 12-Not There Yet
Date: Sunday, February 16, 2011 (1730 UTC)
Weather: Sunny; Winds SSE 10-18 knots, dropping to SE 4-5
Air Temperature: 81 (early am) to 88 degrees F (afternoon)
Latitude: 00 09.341 S
Longitude: 024 38.362 W
Miles Traveled: 1528
Miles to Go: 2401
Location: Passage from St. Helena to Caribbean (Grenada)
We were so close to the equator at this time yesterday. What happened that has kept us on the south side for another twenty-four hours? The answer is a little convoluted, but here it is. Mark sleeps every afternoon from about 3:30 to 5:00. When he gets up, its time to start the engine to charge. At about 6 pm, we send the log and send and receive other emails. When that’s done we eat dinner and then first watch starts at 7 pm. It is in the 5:00 to 7:00 pm time period that decisions need to be made on what sail configuration we’ll use the night watches. That has been an easy decision for past week as we didn’t need to make any changes, but last evening things were different. The wind was more S’ly forcing us to sail due N when we wanted to go NW. And it appeared that we were losing the wind. It dropped from 10 to15 knots down to 8 to 10 and then to 6 to 8. So after eight days of not touching sails, we furled the headsail, centered and sheeted in the mainsail, and started motor sailing. We assumed we would be motoring across the equator in a few hours and then would probably have to continue to motor for the next couple of days until we were free of the ITCZ. But during the first watch, the winds started to build. There were also squalls, so when I came on watch at 11 pm, Mark made the decision that we would keep motoring even though we had 15 knots of wind. It was still S’ly and would head us back to the N if we were to sail it. During the first hour of my first watch, there were more squalls and then after midnight the skies started to clear and the winds stabilized. I would have set the sails but couldn’t as I would need to rig up the preventer which requires going on deck. And neither of us is allowed on deck unless the other one is up and I didn’t want to wake Mark. So I just kept on motoring until Mark came on watch at 2 am. We were then able to get the preventer rigged and we sailed the rest of the night with just the mainsail in 10 to15 knots of wind from the SSE. But we didn’t cross the equator during the night as the change in course had us going almost due west, parallel to the equator. We continued sailing like that until 3:00 this afternoon when the winds started to die down again. We first tried the spinnaker but by the time we got it up, there was too little wind to fill it. So now we are motoring on a NNW’ly course that will get us to the equator just about the time the first watch starts tonight. My hope of sailing across has been dashed, but after so many hours of anticipation, we’ll just be glad to be “on the other side.” By going West all night last night and most of today, we will cross the equator at a place where the GRIBS show that we will hit the Northeast trades sooner rather than later. At best, that is two days away, however, so I think I’d better get used to motoring. We feel like it is amazing that we got to within 14 miles of the equator before having to motor, so again, no complaints here.
