THE 3 BOATS GOING OVER THE BAR HEADING OUT -SAILORS RUN, EVA MARIE & MOODY 40
Day 1
24 hr. Run=140 nm.
Pos. Latitude-00*41’N Longitude-82*14’W.
Weather-10-15 kts SW Seas 2-4
Barometer-1008 mb and steady-Cabin -Temp 80*-82*
Day-2
24 hr. Run=152 nm.
Pos. Latitude-02*03′ N Longitude- 84*18’W
Weather 10-17 kts SW Seas 4-5 ft.
Barometer unchanged.-Cabin Temp 82*-84*
Day-3
24 hr.Run=151 nm
Pos. Latitude- 03*26’N Long. 86* 12’W.
Weather Wind=10-18 kts SW. Seas 6-7 ft.SW.
Barometer steady-Cabin Temp 82*
Total miles sailed so far=443 nm.
Miles left to go aprox. 1757 nm.
Top speed so far-10.5 kts
The rest of the story.
First let me say I’m having major computer problems and the writing of this adventure could end at any time.
Day-1
The pilot climbed aboard about noon but we did not get underway until 12.30 PM as he seemed very concerned about my 6-foot plus draft and the 7.4 tide we were leaving on.
The parade out of the harbor was Sailors Run followed by David on Eva Marie a Bristol-40 and the Martin and crew on a Moody-40.
We cleared the bar with only 19″ of water under our keel partially because of the 4 ft. waves that we had to power into.
Once over the bar and the pilot had returned to the pilot launch I engaged the auto pilot that I had just spent $900 getting repaired and low and behold it went hard right on me, and to make it worse when I tried to disengage it the cable popped out of its strap leaving the pilot engaged. Now here we are doing circles in front of the two boats close behind and after a frantic heads up shout on the radio they took evasive action and steered clear of the “old salt” not looking his best at the start of the race.
The other two boats made the most of it getting their sails up and were off. I on the other hand was tossing lines and anchors out of my aft compartment to gain access to be able to disengage the auto pilot before being blown back onto the bar. It was a long 5 or 30 minutes before we got headed off shore and were able to set some sail and turn the helm over to the wind vane.
It took about an hour to catch the Moody as they were pinching trying to stay south headed to Easter Island and I was going nicely on a close reach, but David was “Hauling ass” and looked to be a real challenge.
It was about 4:30 am when I passed Davis and called him on the VHF to see how he was doing. The answer was not so good he had blown the clew out on his Genoa and fortunately has two headsails and was now sailing under the other smaller sail and looking at a major repair job.Day-2
Wind and waves are up a little and Sailors Run is sailing nice on a close reach on the Port Tack. I call David on the SSB radio and find that the repair is taking longer than expected but he is confident the repair will be strong.
That night being totally exhausted David makes a mistake after realizing the sail needs more work on the luff cord that goes in the foil he decides just to hoist it up out of the foil with the idea he will hand wrap it around the foil for the night rather than have to drag it below again. Well,David pulled real fast but not fast enough as the sail went over the side and filled with water healing the boat way over. Fortunately David released it quick enough at the clew before the sail blew out or something worse happened. He was disappointed but very tired and needed rest.Day-3
On the morning check in I discover that now Sailors Run has a 79 nm lead over Eva Marie and David still needs the rest of the day before he will be ready to get the bigger sail back up.
It was on this morning while checking the weather up ahead of us I became aware of a late season tropical storm ‘Tina” right in our path north about two hundred miles off the Mexican coast. The storm is not expected to become a hurricane and I can only hope it gets out of our way before we get there. I have done a couple of these things and they are no fun. We are at 3* and it is centered at about 18*, my only concern is these late storms are hard to predict which way they will track. Oh well we are far off shore and have plenty of room to run.
We cleared the bar with only 19″ of water under our keel partially because of the 4 ft. waves that we had to power into.
Once over the bar and the pilot had returned to the pilot launch I engaged the auto pilot that I had just spent $900 getting repaired and low and behold it went hard right on me, and to make it worse when I tried to disengage it the cable popped out of its strap leaving the pilot engaged. Now here we are doing circles in front of the two boats close behind and after a frantic heads up shout on the radio they took evasive action and steered clear of the “old salt” not looking his best at the start of the race.
The other two boats made the most of it getting their sails up and were off. I on the other hand was tossing lines and anchors out of my aft compartment to gain access to be able to disengage the auto pilot before being blown back onto the bar. It was a long 5 or 30 minutes before we got headed off shore and were able to set some sail and turn the helm over to the wind vane.
It took about an hour to catch the Moody as they were pinching trying to stay south headed to Easter Island and I was going nicely on a close reach, but David was “Hauling ass” and looked to be a real challenge.
It was about 4:30 am when I passed Davis and called him on the VHF to see how he was doing. The answer was not so good he had blown the clew out on his Genoa and fortunately has two headsails and was now sailing under the other smaller sail and looking at a major repair job.Day-2
Wind and waves are up a little and Sailors Run is sailing nice on a close reach on the Port Tack. I call David on the SSB radio and find that the repair is taking longer than expected but he is confident the repair will be strong.
That night being totally exhausted David makes a mistake after realizing the sail needs more work on the luff cord that goes in the foil he decides just to hoist it up out of the foil with the idea he will hand wrap it around the foil for the night rather than have to drag it below again. Well,David pulled real fast but not fast enough as the sail went over the side and filled with water healing the boat way over. Fortunately David released it quick enough at the clew before the sail blew out or something worse happened. He was disappointed but very tired and needed rest.Day-3
On the morning check in I discover that now Sailors Run has a 79 nm lead over Eva Marie and David still needs the rest of the day before he will be ready to get the bigger sail back up.
It was on this morning while checking the weather up ahead of us I became aware of a late season tropical storm ‘Tina” right in our path north about two hundred miles off the Mexican coast. The storm is not expected to become a hurricane and I can only hope it gets out of our way before we get there. I have done a couple of these things and they are no fun. We are at 3* and it is centered at about 18*, my only concern is these late storms are hard to predict which way they will track. Oh well we are far off shore and have plenty of room to run.
“Watching the weather” the Jefe’