Showing Sailors Run & Jeff going to be sailing by Stewart Island,New Zealand
Total Miles Sailed So Far=16,744 NM
Miles sailed last 3-days=267 NM.
Miles left to go to West Cape New Zealand =150 NM.
Top speed so far for trip= 14.1 kts.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
DAY-124= 24 hr.Run=69 NM.
Position: Lat.46*58’S. Long.158*01S. Weather=Wind: 0-15 kts. N Seas: 8-12 feet
Cabin Temp=56*-64*. Bar=1014mb
It was about midnight on a restless night aboard Sailors Run, and I was having trouble sleeping, as the air had become light and the sails were banging about top side, caused by the continual rolling on the seas.
I had finally had enough and rolled out of my bunk, dragging the spinnaker out from under the chart table and wrestling it up the companionway stairs and out over the top of the three storm boards into the cockpit; now that “will get” your heart pumping.
This spinnaker is a very large one which is off a Gulf Star 50 that my son owned and he had given it to me, knowing I needed one. Plus, it was brand new.
Debbie and I had had it cut down in Argentina to fit the Sailors Run. The sail is amazingly powerful with very broad shoulders, and will move Sailors Run at 5-6kts in 10-knots of breeze.
I launch the spinnaker and soon we are moving at near 3-knots and the wind vane is able to just barely steer with a little help from the mizzen trim.
I finally crash out below and dream of the spinnaker wrapping itself tightly around the forestay, and me aloft in the boson chair “franticly” slashing away at it with a butcher knife trying to cut it in the clear.
We sailed under Spinnaker for 9-hours before the winds increased to 15-knots and it was time to snuff the spinnaker, no easy feat for sure.
Once up on the fore deck I clip in after having already releasing the spinnaker sheet line and start the tug a war to bring the sock down over the “wildly popping and snapping” spinnaker.
Only by standing up on the foredeck and taking three wraps around my hand and falling back using all my weight and ending up laying on the deck do I at last get this monster contained in the snuffer once again.
I must “admit” it is times like this that you wonder if flying a spinnaker is the best idea for the solo sailor.
Day-125 =24 hr.Run=73 NM.
Position:Lat.47*10’S. Long.159*42’E. Weather=Wind: 0-12 kts. from all directions.
Seas: 4-8 feet N. Cabin Temp=58*63*. Bar=1010mb
Today was a light air day once again and we were becalmed [no wind] for 8-hrs. At last we are moving along with a favorable breeze that filled in from the north.
It is times like this that I get a little nervous lingering in an area of notoriously bad weather and having to struggle to get out of here. If I was not sailing unassisted around the world I would have that motor on and scooting out of here, but that is not what this voyage is about.
Today I sewed on “Patches” for 7- hrs. Then I got my weekly shower, something that really makes me feel so much better. I have eaten up the last of the potatoes although I do have some instant mashed potatoes, and tonight it will be a can of “Chunky clam chowder” and a can of corn for dinner.
Day-12= 24 hr. Run=125 NM.
Position: Lat.47*10’S. Long.162*22’E. Weather=Wind=N 8-25 kts. Seas:6-10 ft.
Cabin Temp=57*62* Bar=1007 mb
So far for us the weather looks great for getting around West Cape New Zealand, although possibly a little light at times.
I put in yet another 8-hrs sewing on “Patches”, and there is still no end in sight to this project. All of this hand work truly “sucks and blows”, oh wait a minute, possibly just possibly I have defined the “sex life of the single hander”!
Wait a minute, now getting back to the sewing; I think the fingers on my left hand have more needle holes in them than a Bears paw stealing Honey from a bee’s nest.
Now practicing the 3-SSS’s-Sun-Sailing and Sewing.
The Jefe’