Saturday June 25
N 17 36.051 W 129 02.599 1200 NM miles from Ensenada
Hello Friends and Family,
Yesterday I learned that I had made an error in setting up my Iridium email account. This caused replies to emails I sent out to go to my Gmail account. Unfortunately I can’t receive Gmail messages on my voyage.
Yesterday was an epic day!
After reviewing several cruising guides I became increasingly concerned that the navigation recommendations that I was receiving from my weather routing folks were flawed. I altered course to due South at about 9:00 AM, and shortly after that the winds became very light and variable. This was the price I would have to pay to avoid a potentially much more difficult situation S of the Equator.
Below the Equator the winds are strong and predominantly from the SSE. If I were trying to approach Nuku-Hiva from the North as the routers would have me do I would be unable to make it directly because I would be heading almost into the wind. You need to be at least 45deg off the wind to sail and more angle is better. This can be overcome with tacking however it will add countless miles to a passage and you will be sailing on an undesirable and uncomfortable point of sail for all of it.
At 11:00 AM I received a new weather report and guess what, they came to their senses and agreed that heading further West was a bad idea!
The winds remained light that morning and I experimented with a number of different sail combinations. None gave acceptable performance or ride quality, only one option left the Spinnaker! It takes quite an effort to set up a spinnaker single handed, it is usually done with a crew of 3-4 people. Also flying a spinnaker takes skill and attention, if not handled well a big and expensive mess can result!
The Chute as spinnakers are called has been up for 48 hours straight and doing brilliantly. I have even seen over 6 kn in 15 kn of breeze. However the winds have been more in the range of 7-10 kn. With a pretty wide range of directions changing from time to time 45 deg. I am not flying any other sails as the main would partially blanket the spinnaker. Hopefully everyone is familiar with spinnakers the large roundish sail way out in front of a sailboat? In more modern sailing times these designs have been improved with sub sets of sails for a variety of wind directions and strengths. Mine is conservatively sized and works best in a beam reach to a broad reach. Buying this sail was sort of an iffy call for me, did I really need it? I have learned absolutely yes, a voyager is many times more likely to encounter light winds than heavy. Having efficient sails to use in those situations is really important. I am currently sailing about 100 miles a day, if I didn’t have the right sail it could be half that.
Solar, I have a very robust system and some may think overkill. My boat came with 160 watts of panels, I rebuilt the system and currently have 560 watts. In the past my electricity production has been more than adequate for my needs, however on this trip it has been cloudy for almost the entire time. As a result I am getting half of the power I would at this time of year and this Lat.
This together with increased loads is making my solar system look not so extravagant. I may even have to run my engine to make some more power.
Another time I will get into Watermakers.
Ben Lindner, S/V DAWN
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