Provisional Truths

Day 24 
Noon Position: 3 29.46S 128 07.79W 

Course/Speed: SSE 7

Wind: E 11

Sail: Full working jib; one reef in main

Bar: 1016

Sea: SE 4

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Cabin Temp: 85

Water Temp: 77
Miles last 24-hours: 181 a) we went very fast; b) there must be a beneficial current in these parts; c) I turned ship’s clock back an hour to make calculating local noon more convenient. 

Miles since departure: 2986

I get satisfaction out of the practice of celestial navigation, whose principles I forget almost as fast as I learn them. Thus each (fortunately frequent) passage is a chance to dive afresh into Tom Cunliffe’s lucid and succinct CELESTIAL NAVIGATION. And as I began it this morning, I was reminded of the provisional nature of truth.

The book begins, “At school we all learn that the stars are plunging through space at various mind-boggling distances from us and that the Earth is travelling on an annual voyage around the sun. Whether all of this is true is of no relevance to the practical astro-navigator (for whom) the Earth…is a perfectly round ball swimming in a vacuum at the center of the known universe.”

I once met a man who thought the world was flat. I asked him what his theory of the earth explained. “That the earth is flat,” he replied. “But beyond that, what terrestrial riddles does it de-mystify? Why do you believe the world is flat?” I asked. “Because it’s true,” was all he could come up with.

But truth is provisional and is only as good as its ability to make sense of a great many things. Just so, the conception of our small world at the outer arm of one of untold galaxies helps us launch satellites and put men on the moon. And a universe with the earth at its center helps the sailor find his way home.

My first shot for latitude was out by twenty miles, and that’s the easy one.

Winds were light today, allowing me to make a course with some east in it and to get at a troublesome foredeck job. 

As noted earlier, the anchor windlass leaks water into the anchor locker when we are taking water over the bow, which is all we have done since crossing into the southeast trades. I have the anchor stowed, but the chain is still out due to an odd anchor shackle I can’t remove without destroying its locking pins. 

I’ve stuffed all the nooks and crannies under the windlass canvas cover with plastic wrap and laid over that a thick bead of silicon, but I’m still draining a gallon or so out of the locker each day. I think the stuffing job was pretty thorough, so today I attempted to seal the anchor locker hatch, whose small drains are working as they should but are overwhelmed and whose gaskets are old and maybe not entirely water tight. 

Now that the wind has returned (16 and growing) and we are back to pounding, I’ll have the opportunity to see how provisional this truth turns out to be.