Day Two of Forever

Day 126 (Day 2 of this leg)

Noon Position: 44 58S 153 59E

Course/Speed: ESE4

Wind: W10

Bar: 1013 steady

Sea: W3

Sky: Squally

Cabin Temperature: 65

Water Temperature: 55

Sail: Wing and wing with main and working jib

Noon to Noon Miles Made Good: 150

Miles this leg: 295

Avg. Miles this leg: 147

Miles since departure: 17,550

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“Good Morning, Monte.* It’s nice to see you at your post again.” I say.

“Buenas Dias, Senior. I enjoyed my, how you say, shore leave, but it is nice to again have a hand on the tiller and wind in my face.”

“What wind?”

“It is an expression, Senior.”

“I know. I’m just impatient. I too enjoyed my shore leave and could have enjoyed more of it. ”

“Ah, but senior, you are a sailor–you spend too much of money in port and eat too much of food. You get fat and lazy. Besides, your boat, she like a fine guitar, lovely to look at but only happy when she is played.”

“Be that as it may, I could do with a fast passage. I am impatient to be home. Day two feels like day two of forever.”

Monte sucks his teeth. “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. It is not good for a sailor to be impatient. On this trip there will be many slow days. I recommend you nap when the wind she is light. I will wake you when it picks up. Some days at sea and you will be yourself again.”

*Monte is my much trusted Monitor Wind Vane who can be quite gabby on certain days.

___

I am impatient for many reasons, but one, at least, is rational. I want us to get around New Zealand while the getting is good. Depending on the day, the weather reports show benign wind for the next week (*benign* being 30 knots or less) or a 45 knot screamer followed by a tight low in the lee of South Island.

That said, I can feel the rhythm returning. There’s a timelessness to being at sea, a rather slow kind of timelessness, that takes getting used to. But sleeping in shifts and being forced to make sail changes at night, as we have done these last two, is a fast way of getting into the groove.

I’m not quite there though, one indication being a lack of appetite. Dinner was cold soup from the can forced down just so I could say I’d had something. I then forgot breakfast today till I was nearly shaking. I made a quick bowl of Museli with a double shot of Soylent for milk around noon and felt much restored.

Over night the main complained of our deeply quartering wind angle by slamming the boom against the vang and sheering a pin on the lower vang block. Easily fixed, but a reminder that the vang needs to be more than hand tight, even when you think the sail is plenty full.

I gybed at 2am to take on starboard wind that had gone from north to westsouthwest after dinner. Then it was still in the high teens, but has been steadily softening. Now we run wing and wing with the two headsails poled out in 10 knots of breeze, a far better arrangement than wing and wing with the main in light stuff–for the main slats and bangs like a berserker.

One wonders at the toughness of sails–how they can take such a beating and hold together, much less hold their shape. I bought all new HOOD Sails before departing. I had cruised with HOOD sails before and was impressed with their solid build. Now Mo’s sails have over 17,000 miles of flying, 10,000 of that in the south, and even the working jib, which is called such because it is almost always working, still looks and feels new. Can they take the 9,000 miles home and then another 40,000 for the Figure 8 redo? It certainly appears so.

More sail changes tonight as winds moves back into the north. And that is how we make our easting.