Day 4 & 5 - Now we're sailing again.... Oops, a bit too much!
It's 4am and I’m on my own again. Again, I spent most of my watch sitting on the aft cabin looking at the stars and Milky Way. I watched Mars, Venus, the moon and then the sun come up to a beautiful sky. Winds were still very light so we were still motoring and this time I only had to dodge a few fishing boats that I could see even before the radar picked them up (AIS was still only good to within about 2 nautical miles but we didn't get any closer than about 8 to any of these). It was starting to get a bit cloudy just as the sun was coming up so unfortunately it wasn't quite as good as I was hoping it could be but I know this won't be my last sunrise at sea!
Just after the sunrise, the forecasted strong winds started to show up and I had to dodge a thunderstorm that seemed to go from one horizon to the other across our path. There was a "sucker hole" just to the east of it which was on our direct course (it was moving to the east) but I really didn't like the look of the storm clouds and the radar was painting it solid behind that hole so I altered course further west to pass it by on the backside even if that meant going into a solid wall of rain and low clouds. I figured out how to put up the side canopy covers only to take them down again a few minutes later when I made it past to the west after a short but hard shower and then we were back into the sun for a bit.
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| My first sunrise watch. |
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| Just me and the boat (and two sleeping crew mates) 40 miles from the mainland. |
Steve got up at 8 and as it was so nice out, I just put up a cushion on the aft cabin against the dingy and had a little snooze in the sun. When I woke up there was a flying fish on the deck beside me but I never heard anything. Steve said he saw a solitary dolphin but he was gone when he got the camera ready. We spent the day motorsailing, motoring and sailing as the winds were light and flukey and on our nose most of the day with a better forecast to come on strong this evening.
It’s now 5:30pm and we’re past Charleston and have decided to pull in at St Mary’s Bay just north of Jacksonville to find out the docking/mooring situation in St Augustine. The winds are supposed to go into the high 20’s with 8-14’ seas but it’s on our tail so we’re looking forward to getting some miles done tonight and tomorrow.
We all sat down in the cabin and had a nice dinner and a beer (we only have one drink per day weather and traffic permitting) and I cleaned up before starting my watch at 8pm as the guys headed off to bed. The wind has really started to pick up now and it's already over 30 knots (still on our rear starboard quarter) gusting to 35. We've taken down the Genoa up front and the mizzen in the rear but still have all of the mainsail out. The boat is handling it well and we're consistently going from 8-10 knots as we surf down the building swells. I'm enjoying it and take this video.
It's about 9:30pm now and the winds are now consistently over 35 knots and the seas have been building rapidly to about 15'. The boat yaws badly (about 70º) down a very big wave setting off the rudder limit alarms on the autopilot which are pretty loud and certainly get your attention. It yawed to the east so the boat gybes and the boom tries to go flying to the other side (the preventer stops it) but it makes a big bang anyway. I reset the autopilot and it brings it back under control just as Kent and Steve come up to see what the commotion is all about. They are both surprised by how quickly the seas and winds have built up and none of us like the fact that the wind has been veering towards our stern (we started off with about 60º off the stern but it's now closer to 30º and in gusts over 40 knots to less than that. It looks like it is only going to get worse so we agree that we should take in about half of the mainsail.
To do this, we need to turn the boat into the wind (and big waves) so we fire up the engine so that I can turn it around into the wind. As the engine is warming up, Kent puts on his lifeline and's straps on to go up front and take off the preventer (I'm thinking that the first modification I'd make is to rig the preventer so that it can be accessed from inside the cockpit!). Steve gets on the traveller winch but he can't move it at all as the winds have it pinned to the side. I take it off the autopilot and turn the boat 120º into the wind/waves (a big one comes over the front and soaks Kent) but the boat won't go into the wind even with our normal 2200 RPM's on so I pour on the throttle and she finally turns into the wind.
Steve furiously cranks on the traveller to bring it to centre and the waves are doing their best to knock us off course. Kent's back in the cockpit which is a good thing as it's completely pitch black out, the waves are at least 15' high and are smashing against our windscreen and the compass is nearly useless as it is bouncing us around so much. Steering this thing blind with waves crashing over the front and not being able to see anything isn't much fun so I put the autopilot back on and it does a much better job of holding a heading than I can steering blind and looking at the mainsail alone.
We use the electric furling to almost completely bring in the mainsail (we were going to leave about half of it out but decided we didn't want to go through this again so cranked almost all of it in leaving out about 1 square metre of sail area). Steve then cranked the traveller back to port, I put the boat back on course and Kent went back out to secure the traveller to lock the boom in place as the winds were veering around to our stern and we didn't want to do another unintentional gybe in these conditions. It's quite a bit better ride with the boat going downwind and it settles down a bit although we were still concerned about the fact that the wind was only 30º off our stern. We agree that we should double up the watch tonight as it's too much for one guy to do so Steve stays up with me and Kent heads off to dry off and grab some shut eye.
My watch was supposed to end at midnight but with the doubling up of the watch, I figure I should stay up until 2am with Steve and then Kent and he can share it until 6am when I'll come back up and take over from Steve and share the last bit of the night watch with Kent.
It's about midnight now, the winds are hitting the 40's on every gust and the seas have built up even more. A ship shows up on our radar about a mile away (it was hidden in the seas) on our port stern quarter which gets our attention. We start looking around for it furiously and we see it not far away and it looks like it is at least 100' wide and it's coming straight for us. We start getting bits of information about it on the AIS and our headings are much too close for comfort. We try hailing him on the VHF but we aren't getting anything so we try both handhelds. Nothing. It seems to Steve and I that it's getting closer and we see both Red and Green lights which means it's pointed right at us. We're going up and down 15-20' on the waves and lose it in every trough so we're getting pretty concerned. Steve grabs our floodlight and hits it's bridge with the 2M candlepower in a flashing manner. They respond within a few seconds with a flashing light of their own and we can see them alter course to pass slightly behind us and then paralleled us for what seemed like 2 hours. According to the AIS they never got to within a 1/2 nautical mile of us but with the size of that thing, it seemed like we could reach out and touch it. It was heading for Charleston and we ended up seeing another three of them within the next hour.
One, a very large cabin cruiser passed in front of us and we wondered what the heck it was doing out there in these conditions (as I'm sure it did with us). While all of that was going on, I was feeling fine even with the big waves but we decided to turn the boat a bit more to starboard to put us out of the line of fire so to speak and as soon as things settled down and the adrenaline left me, I started feeling pretty crappy as the boat was yawing up to about 60º on every second or third wave and you couldn't predict it or in fact even see it as it was so dark. I'm fine with up and down and rolling motions from my flying days but yawing (side to side laterally) isn't much fun for this old guy so I left the helm and went to the lee side of the cockpit to see if I could retain my dinner. No such luck unfortunately as just about as soon as I got there, we got slammed by the biggest wave yet (it broke over the stern and washed down both sides of the cockpit - soaking my head and sending us yawing about 90º. I spent a few minutes emptying my stomach and immediately started to feel a bit better but stayed back there just the same for the rest of my watch.
Kent came up on schedule at 2am so I headed to the bed for my nap. I have to admit I was a bit concerned about how I would make out up there but as the nose wasn't yawing around, I actually felt much better and was asleep in second. I had set my alarm so that I'd be up at 4am because Steve would have been on for 5 hours by then and once I got my foulies on and was walking through the main cabin, I saw he was passed out on the main saloon settee. I was up anyway so decided to go share the watch with Kent who was sitting over in a protected part of the cockpit having a smoke trying to warm up. The wind had come down to about 35 knots and since we only had a postage stamp up, the boat was handling it much better. Kent said he'd let Steve rest not long after I went down, so I told Kent I'd take it and let him get some rest for the day shift. He gratefully took advantage of that and headed for the warmth of his bed.
I should say that the boat has a fully enclosed dodger but Kent's was on it's last legs (he'd already ordered a new one but it didn't make it before we left) so there were two zippers blown and the wind rustled right through them. Kent had gotten soaked twice that night and although I'd taken one big wave to the head, the rest of me was dry and nice and warm so it wasn't a big hardship to stand watch for me.
I took it until about 8am when Steve came up to see how things were going. We were flying along and had seen as much as 15 knots surfing down some of the big rollers but the motion was much kindlier now that we'd turned the corner past Charleston (we had set the course so that we wouldn't get much farther than 50 nautical miles offshore so that we could easily run for cover if a hurricane should pop up)... this meant we could run with a bit more wind on the quarter which meant we weren't yawing around as much. My tummy was fine although I didn't look back to see the sun rise! (it was cloudy and foggy so wouldn't have seen it anyway). This is about when we saw the dolphins.
I don't have any video of the really nasty conditions (or of those ships that concerned us) as we were otherwise occupied but suffice it to say that it wasn't very pleasant and I was glad to be on a boat like the Amel. I never once felt the boat was in danger or even overpowered. Certainly none of the waves even remotely threatened the boat and I don't think we ever rolled more than 20º. The real problem was the green crew mate! If it wasn't for the bad yawing (I probably should have veered off course sooner), I don't think I'd have had any problems at all. We sailed in conditions much like the video shows (the waves were much bigger than they seem in this video - occasionally higher than the solar panels on the back of the boat but it was a relatively easy ride.
Kent got up not long after that so I headed off to bed to catch up on my sleep after a long and challenging night. Knowing the boat was in good hands, I popped some Gravol which knocked me out and I was out until about 2pm. When I got up, I wasn't sure what to expect so didn't have any breakfast and went up to the cockpit right off. Kent was at the helm and we seemed to be zooming right along doing 8-12 knots as the waves passed us. Quite the sleigh ride!
At about 3pm, we started to see the entrance bouys for the 5 mile long channel into St. Mary's Bay about 6 miles back but they demanded that we turn nearly broadside into the waves so I was a bit concerned about how the boat (and I) would handle that. I needn't have worried... no matter how big the waves were, Kristy just handled it with aplomb. We didn't even get much spray from the waves hitting her sides. They just slid under her for the most part and she'd put down her nose and take on the next one. If this was my boat, in these conditions, I'd be worried that she'd broach but it was a non-event for Kristy. We had about an hour to make it through the channel (it's quite narrow as it's very shallow on both sides) and Kent had about 20º of crab on which was the most he'd ever seen but we were soon past the break walls and into calmer waters if not winds.
Our plan was to anchor in the bay and we'd make some calls in the morning to find a place to leave Kristy. We found a spot with plenty of water and though it was unprotected from the winds, Kristy didn't react at all and sat there quite placidly. Over 650 nautical miles in five days and 4 hours... and two of them with no winds at all... not bad! As I'd taken that Gravol earlier, I was still feeling a bit dopey and said not to worry about me for dinner (Kent was going to do fish sandwiches which didn't appeal to me at all) and that I'd call it an early night. I don't think I was awake more than 30 seconds after my head hit the pillow and I was asleep until 7am the next morning!
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