Ships, squalls and wind!
Thank you for praying for wind. I took a picture of Intrepid's icon on the ClearPoint Weather screen. I am in a bubble of wind surrounded by no wind. Very cool!
I had a better night last night. I was only woken up twice and that by shifting winds not ships. I did do a lot of sailing in the night. Why does the wind come at night? That was weird but what was more weird was about 10:00 this morning this huge black cloud with 4 arms reaching down to the sea was on the horizon. I thought it may be a squall or something so I jumped up on deck to reef the main sail just in case some strong winds came. As I was up there fiddling with the lines, my proximity alarm went off. This is the alarm that warns of objects within a certain distance of my boat. I looked out to sea to see that there was a huge container ship about 3 miles off headed straight for me! I ripped the reefs out of the sail and ran back to the cockpit, started up the engine and hauled out of there. The ship passed me no more than 1/4 mile behind me. A bit too close for comfort for me.
Then, of course, I still have this 4-armed thing looming over me. Wind was going from 7 knots to 20 knots all of a sudden. It is incredibly hard work to be constantly tweeking lines on the sails and lines on the windvane while sliding around on these rollers. The windvane is working better now or should I say I am working better now. It takes some experience to figure out the exact way the vane works with your boat. Just when I get everything set, I slide down these rollers and the windvane gets off course or the wind dies and everything is flogging. My dad always said that every time the boom whacks, it costs you $1. You can't just sit there and listen to it damage itself, so up you go...
I have another situation that I am watching. My main sail halyard has wrapped around one of the collapsible mast steps. I don't know how it got in there because the mast step was closed. Now the line is inside the closed mast step. I'm hoping it will work its way out of there or else I'll have to go up the mast to free it.
I had pretty good wind this morning, then flukey winds this afternoon and of course picking up again this evening. Apparently I am sailing into a large calm. Hopefully, it won't last too long. A day seems like a week these days.
Thanks for the notes and emails.
Cheers,
Zac
I had a better night last night. I was only woken up twice and that by shifting winds not ships. I did do a lot of sailing in the night. Why does the wind come at night? That was weird but what was more weird was about 10:00 this morning this huge black cloud with 4 arms reaching down to the sea was on the horizon. I thought it may be a squall or something so I jumped up on deck to reef the main sail just in case some strong winds came. As I was up there fiddling with the lines, my proximity alarm went off. This is the alarm that warns of objects within a certain distance of my boat. I looked out to sea to see that there was a huge container ship about 3 miles off headed straight for me! I ripped the reefs out of the sail and ran back to the cockpit, started up the engine and hauled out of there. The ship passed me no more than 1/4 mile behind me. A bit too close for comfort for me.
Then, of course, I still have this 4-armed thing looming over me. Wind was going from 7 knots to 20 knots all of a sudden. It is incredibly hard work to be constantly tweeking lines on the sails and lines on the windvane while sliding around on these rollers. The windvane is working better now or should I say I am working better now. It takes some experience to figure out the exact way the vane works with your boat. Just when I get everything set, I slide down these rollers and the windvane gets off course or the wind dies and everything is flogging. My dad always said that every time the boom whacks, it costs you $1. You can't just sit there and listen to it damage itself, so up you go...
I have another situation that I am watching. My main sail halyard has wrapped around one of the collapsible mast steps. I don't know how it got in there because the mast step was closed. Now the line is inside the closed mast step. I'm hoping it will work its way out of there or else I'll have to go up the mast to free it.
I had pretty good wind this morning, then flukey winds this afternoon and of course picking up again this evening. Apparently I am sailing into a large calm. Hopefully, it won't last too long. A day seems like a week these days.
Thanks for the notes and emails.
Cheers,
Zac
posted by Zac at
11:25 PM
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