Slowing Time

Day 44
Noon Position: 45 44S 109 33W

Course/Speed: ESE 6

Wind: W 18 – 29

Sail: Twins poled, deeply reefed

Bar: 1012, dropping

Sea: W 15

Sky: Clear

Cabin Temp: 59 

Water Temp: 48
Miles last 24-hours: 156

Miles since departure: 5878

I know the transition has been slow. Nothing much happens quickly when you’re traveling at 7 miles an hour. But it feels quick. Everything feels quick. Wave movement, wind, approaching cloud, boat motion. And most especially the transition from where we were two weeks ago to the surprising where we are now. I don’t remember a transition. I remember calm seas, a sense of stuckness, and being sticky-hot. Now the sea is big and running fast and every day the temperature drops faster than expected. I remember living in my underwear and sleeping without any cover. No I’m in long johns and wear sheepskin boots.

Quick, that’s the sensation, quick. Time is one step ahead of me–just that inch and a half beyond control. 

I came on deck this morning to change from taking wind on the quarter with working jib and main to running before it on poled out twin headsails. I had just rolled up the working jib and was preparing the port pole when I noticed some chafe on the jib furling line. A closer look showed that the cover and two strands had been cut through. The chafe, cotton-white, brand new. 
Working the problem backwards revealed that the line had been rubbing on the furling drum opening, which is smaller than the drum is high. The sail had struggled for clean air throughout the night, as is was behind the main, which is why I’d reefed it heavily and run it in tight. It was the pumping action that had cut the line.

Nothing for it but to do an end-for-end, an easy job in a marina and a laborious one in winds nearing 30 knots and a fifteen foot swell. It took two hours. Then poling out the port sail, dropping the main, poling out the starboard sail…I was on deck for four hours, with a break in the middle for oatmeal and more coffee. 

This was my second chafe surprise. The other was last week when I flew the poles for the first time this passage and the starboard pole nearly cut through its jib sheet in the space fo 24-hours. Too much sail, too much tension on the sheet, too much movement of the line through pole.

I expect chafe. Lines are extra long, and I have spare line. But I expect it to be slow and notable, not an overnight phenomenon. A parted furling line or sheet could cost the sail. 

So I’ve slowed things down on Mo today. I’ve run the twins extra conservatively all afternoon. Just a scrap of sail with special focus on balance of tension between sheet and control lines and no movement. Go small, go slow. Watch.

We could average 8 knots today with ease. Instead we’re making 6.  
And then after lunch I shut up the cabin and hit the sack for two hours. If napping takes practice, practice starts now. After yesterday’s post, the “strong recommendation” from my friend Tony Gooch was “if you are not on deck, not fixing something, and not eating, you should be sleeping.” 
Slow and easy. Just like the albatross. The world can be as quick as it wants. We are slow and easy.