Your Captain Speaking

X-ing File #4_Cape Verdes to the Caribbean (hopefully!)

To give some balance to the previous less than technical (or enthusiastic) report of our voyage across the Atlantic, the Cap’n has been asked to write a summary of the voyage in terms that those with some nautical experience will appreciate.  Questions at the end…

For those with a sailing bent: 

We poled out the genoa to port on day three and there it stayed for the next 14 days.  The only movement was to reef it and then unreef it as squalls came through and passed on, which were daily occurrences but no problem with roller furling – very easy in fact. We hardly used the mainsail as WJ3 has very swept back spreaders and I don’t like the mainsail rubbing against the spreaders/standing rigging.  

Winds were a steady 15-20 knots and it was a slow day when they dropped to 10-15, which happened on a couple of days.  ‘Bert’, the Hydrovane, steered all the way except when it occasionally became overwhelmed in gusts which could be up to and sometimes over 30knots, and I had to step up and steer us back on course.   I might add here that when Bert is steering, the wheel and boat rudder are locked and Bert’s rudder steers the boat.  It’s a much smaller rudder than WJ3’s so it simply can’t cope in big gusts when the natural tendency for the boat is to round up into the wind.  Anyway, it made for very relaxing sailing, however, it certainly can’t maintain as steady a course as an autopilot but then it doesn’t consume any power and is extremely quiet.  Overall pretty easy sailing but the odd night of vicious and frequent squalls plus the boat’s constant rolling and rocking over 16 days made landfall even more sweet.

“The time gone has been good;

the time to come will be even better.” 

The cry of cabin boys at every Change of Watch on Columbus’s ships. 15^th c.