0940 PDT 7/23/24
Last night I went on watch joining Eric and replacing Tracy at 0500 PDT. Tracy was spent. He had taken over for David who saw 27 knots of True Wind Speed, which is pretty rowdy under a spinnaker in 7' waves. We'll have to look at Boat Speed history for that stretch.
Eric took the helm, while I took the spinnaker sheet and got oriented. It was still cranking at 23-25 knots. If we pointed up above 150* True Wind Angle, there was risk that the rudder pressure would overpower the helmsman, and we'd wipe out to windward. If we fell off below 165* the kite would deflate, boat and kite would become unstable. 160*ish was a reasonable target to steer to, but was not easy to keep to. A wipe out to leeward could risk an accidental gybe - highly undesirable. The 5-7' waves kept trying to slap the boat around independent of the helmsman's suggestions. In those brief moments when concentration lapsed, we might roll 20* to either side, sweeping the mast through 40*. With roll to either side or heel, rudder pressure changes a lot, and the boat wants to turn in the direction opposite of the heel. Waves kick the transom sideways as they reach the transom. And if we caught the backside of the wave ahead, it would slow the bow before the stern thereby encouraging a turn. In this, wind speed and direction were each variable and not correlated. With roll and yaw covered, there's also pitch. When a 7' wave lifts the back of the 50' boat, the bow gets pitched downhill like a surfboard on a face. The boat surges forward accelerating in the surf. Apparent Wind Speed increases and Apparent Wind Direction moves forward. You want to ride that surge of speed for a long time and also point the boat in a direction to keep all of the forces from wind, waves and gravity in balance. The environment is highly dynamic. The steering wheel moves every second. Mistakes can be costly. Big errors get messy. Small ones require focus for recovery. And strength and speed is in high demand. Feet are wide, knees bent, hands flying fast all over the spinning steering wheel. The heart rate is up from the kinetics, let alone the situation. Meanwhile, it's as loud as a freight train running by. The simplest extracurricular comments/questions are ignored. Important comments are hardly audible. Focus is absolute. Let's go ahead and add that clouds were obscuring the horizon, moonlight and stars, so there were really no visual cues to key off of for frame of reference - literally as to which way is up, nor how far right or left we were turning. It was dark and Eric was flying by instruments. As our crew member with the least time at the helm on any boat in any condition, one might expect Eric would be outside of his comfort zone in this. Instead, he acknowledged the difference between Type I fun (something that is fun in the moment) and Type II fun (something that might be more fun in retrospect than in the moment), squeezed the wheel until his knuckles went white and crushed it. He did a great job, and stretched his comfort zone to new limits.
We reduced the nighttime watch time on helm from :30 to :15 and started to sail 3-up instead of 2-up. Maintaining this intensity is exhausting for the mind and body. Off the helm allowed for recovery. On my turn on helm, I set a new trip Boat Speed record at 15.7. I'm not going to be satisfied until one of us breaks 16, a target cited during one of our first sails together on Festina Lente. Back to recovery, when Craig's turn on watch came up, he pointed out the impossibility of sleeping in the environment. For this reason, when I was the guy on standby in the 3-up rotation, and when I was not in use, I just tried to sleep on the cockpit floor in my gear, 100% ready to jump in at any moment.
When day broke, we found a 3" hole in the A4 spinnaker. The repair was a 4-crew exercise that took :40 minutes and significantly reduced speed. We estimate it cost 1.6 miles. But we need this kite to keep us charging hard.
Some people wonder how this can be fun. On board, some wonder what is as much fun as this?
Now with 962 miles remaining, we passed halfway, and will have a celebration around dinner.
Recipients of time-released cards/pics from loved ones really appreciate those.
Some seabirds have circled us for a time. They are still outnumbered by plastic debris. And we've seen a number of flying fish.
All good.
-- Jeremy --
