What is nice when on a long voyage is seeing the miles tick down, ok they never tick down as fast as one hopes but it was with pleasant surprise that as I plotted my position this evening it marked the end of a second 200 mile day.
Of course that does make me wonder what the distances would have been if i hadn't dropped the spinnaker, the answer probably less as I may well have made a silly mistake and ended up with a spinnaker wrapped around my mast! One thing that is taking its toll on my sanity is the concentration required to keep the boat going at its best, when sailing upwind once the boat has been trimmed she may not be at optimum with George steering but she will not be far off it, and generally other than some awful bangs and crashes as she falls off the crests of waves you can relax a bit. Sailing downwind with large amounts of coloured sailcloth flying is slightly different tho. When below I am constantly tensing whatever i am holding expecting the boat to soddenly screw up into wind, lay flat and the rig to start pounding any moment. luckily those moments are few and far between but the tension is always there. Alternatively I am sat steering and waiting to fall asleep on the wheel and the same thing to happen! The answer is of course simple either take the spinnaker down yet again and be happy with 7.5 kts boat speed imagining the other boats surfing waves at 13+kts or keep pressing on taking breaks when I feel desperate for a some sleep. I think for now answer B wins. Especially as the forecast is for lighter and lighter winds, I need to make the best of it now knowing it will not last forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment