| On Monday the seas increased to 8 feet with winds 15-25 knots. In the morning we jibed over to a port broad reach as we were north of our intended track. Although officially south of the Tropic of Cancer on Sunday, it wasn�t until Monday that we finally took off our sweats, 8 days after our departure from La Gomera. At night, though, we still wore a light jacket during night watches. By Tuesday, the winds were 20-25 knots and seas 12-15 feet. Generally seas come from one direction, but these seas were coming from two to three different angles due to opposing wind and currents. Also, these seas were short and steep rather than the longer swells we normally encountered. Sailing downwind has often been referred to like being in a washing machine due to the twisting motion, but with the seas coming from different directions this motion was accentuated. Now we were definitely �holding on�, and Kuhela was taking lots of water over her deck and in the cockpit plus quite a pounding, especially when the seas came from the sides. With the winds increasing, we reefed our main to its third and final reef point early Wednesday afternoon. Now we were sailing with just a small amount of sail up in both our main and poled out jib. After reefing, we brought Kuhela back to a starboard broad reach as we were now south of our track. But unlike on Monday when we jibed, this time due to the high seas we used the engine and very slowly �came about� with the wind passing over our bow instead of our stern, waiting for just the right moment to turn into the wind. By mid-afternoon, the wind was 30 knots and the seas were 20 feet and steep, breaking at times. By evening, the winds were 35 knots and up to 45 knots during gusts. One wave came into the cockpit so fast that we didn�t close the hatch in time and so took water inside the cabin. We definitely didn�t sleep much that night. The same unsettled weather continued on Thursday, with steep 20 foot seas and winds 25-35 knots, with up to 45 knots in gusts. Throughout the day, Kuhela continued to take quite a beating. On a number of our passages there had been at times tense moments; today was one of those days. In the afternoon when Phil went to tighten the lines of our self-steering vane, he found that the welds had broken on the shaft, thus making the self-steering vane inoperable. Thankfully, we still had our auto pilot. In the evening, we both started to smell diesel. The idea that our brand new Turkish fuel tank was leaking was absolutely depressing. We both felt worn down, and our weather report showed no end in sight during the immediate future. The only positive thought was that �hanging on� gave us great isometric exercise. Thursday certainly was not a great day, and the sea conditions again made for a long night. At times like these when problems occurred, we really felt infinitesimal in such a big ocean, so far away from any sight of land. As we were only halfway across the Atlantic, we started to think about the worse case scenarios. �What if� the auto pilot failed and we had to steer by hand 24 hours a day. �What if� our batteries failed, making our auto pilot inoperable. �What if� we ran out of fuel due to our fuel tank leak, making us unable to charge the batteries or start the engine. �What if� our rudder broke. Before leaving Turkey, Phil had had an emergency rudder made that attached to our self-steering vane as our existing rudder was only one of a few items that had never been replaced or fixed on our almost 30 year old boat. Now with our wind vane inoperable, our emergency rudder was useless. Luckily, none of our worst case scenarios ever happened, but on that day and the following days those �what ifs� kept entering our minds. Friday we had more of the same unsettled weather with winds 25-30 knots and gusts to 35 knots. The seas were down to 15 feet but still coming at times from different angles. In the morning we brought the boat back to a port broad reach as we were now north of our track. Due to the high seas, we used the engine like we had on Wednesday and very slowly �came about.� On Saturday, the seas were once more 20 feet and winds 25-35 knots. As our GPS allowed us to calculate the speed of the boat, our speed while surfing the big seas was normally for a few seconds 7-9 knots. During the early morning hours of Saturday it peaked at 13 knots, the most ever. In the rough sea conditions, our auto pilot worked much harder, using more amps than normal. Since our self-steering vane broke, we had been having to charge our batteries three times a day in order to keep our auto pilot working as our aging batteries were unable to keep their charge very long. At 5 a.m. while still dark, we had another scare. Our batteries were so low that when Phil started the engine to charge the batteries, our auto pilot shut off for the first time causing the boat to jibe hard, breaking the preventer before Phil could correct the course in total darkness. Fortunately, nothing more happened; it could have been far worse. Luckily, we had another preventer. |
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