Naps and Vents

Day 43
Noon Position: 43 51S 111 48W

Course/Speed: SE 6

Wind: W to 20

Sail: Reaching with two tucks in working jib and main

Bar: 1019

Sea: W 10+

Sky: Clear

Cabin Temp: 61

Water Temp: 50 (down five degrees from yesterday)
Miles last 24-hours: 155

Miles since departure: 5722

Crisp sunrise to start a crisp and sunny day at sea. Wind has been in the low 20s from the west for most of it but is slacking as I write, and the barometer has risen to 1019, up from 1014 yesterday noon. My tactic for outrunning the descending belt of calm may not be entirely successful. 

Today’s news: I napped, twice. This is not my habit ashore, and I’ve struggled on previous cruises to incorporate this very sensible activity into my routine. 

Night sleeping at sea is interrupted, often. I typically wake to an alarm once every hour or two and visit the pilot house to ensure all is well, and then there are the nights one is called to be on deck for sail changes–a frequent requirement already on this passage and unlikely to become less so soon. 

Then there’s my nervousness about the Horn approach and the three or four months of circling so as to approach it again. Add to this that I’m moving slowly on deck (partly on purpose!) and feel wibbly in the knees and am falling asleep while eating the last of dinner. 

Upshot: I’m sleep deprived and am starting to make stupid mistakes. This morning I clipped a topping-lift to its stowage ring and began hauling it taught, which should have required one good tug to make it so. But I hauled for some time, staring at my hands doing the hauling, before realizing the snap shackle hadn’t clicked closed, was now half way up the mast and threatening more. For me, mast ascension is emphatically not on the bucket list, ever, but especially before my second cup of coffee and in an irregular ten foot swell.

While putting a reef in the main later that morning, I was again mindlessly hauling with a will, even though the halyard was prematurely taught due to the sail’s luff being wrapped around a mast step. No harm no foul–but I was lucky.

Moitessier wrote that a sailor’s life is one of frequent “cat napping.” I hope today’s daylight snoozes suggest I’m able to adopt that practice going forward. 

Eric Hiscock once opined that the best survival strategy for the Southern Ocean is to “keep the water out.” Following his lead, this afternoon I closed most of Mo’s nine dorade vents with a stainless steel plate, as where we’re headed can overwhelm even this wonderful invention. And besides, I soon won’t be interested in allowing fresh air below that is barely above freezing. 

And the pilot house floor board locks work again. They had gone out of adjustment, and one was missing some key parts, which I was able to rummage from my bin of nuts and bolts. 

A note of thanks to Tony Gooch, previous owner of Moli and highly experienced singlehander, for the above two, and many other, safety features aboard. 

All around, a productive day.