Rain and Wind adds to the Frustration

08/03/02

    We kept motoring yesterday, though we kept the main up in hopes that some wind would come.  Finally at 1615 we got a breeze, set the jib, and stopped the engine.

   This lasted a whole fifteen minutes before the wind died again.  Later on that night, at the end of David’s watch, we got another wind coming up and killed the engine again.  The wind rose further up to 20 knots, and we reefed the jib, then it started raining heavily.  We turned on the radar and saw that we appeared to be passing through a squall.  Eric’s opinion was that the whole thing would be over in half an hour and we would be back to no wind.  I kept an eye on it during my 2200-2400 watch.

   The rain abated somewhat, but the wind kept up.  I turned in, and when I woke up for my next watch, David was soaked, and was taking a bottle of dish soap on deck to have a shower.  He had experienced heavy rains and wild, shifting winds throughout his watch.  By the time I took over, the winds were down to 8 knots and the rain was slacking off.  The rain continued to lessen, and I saw the moon and a few stars come out.  The wind increased to 15 knots and veered to the northwest.  I should have let out the sails and put us on a reach, but I wasn’t thinking.  In the end it didn’t matter much, as the wind was all over the place through the morning.

   When I woke up this morning, it was still raining heavily and Eric and David were going up on deck to tack.  It’s a good thing I got up when I did, because 5 minutes later I would be lying on my face.  The wind continued quite fickle all morning, and we just let it go until into my watch.  Eric decided our course was too far off, and we might do better to tack.  At this point the winds were 8-10 knots.  Eric and I went up to tack, and the wind died.  He started the engine, but we were not able to make headway against the large seas.  After fiddling around for some time trying to find something that worked, the wind picked up to 15 knots and we decided to go on starboard tack (a great relief to me, though with the waves bashing, neither tack was really comfortable).

   The  compass course we are steering now is good (230 degrees), but the GPS is showing that we are heading 170!  There is some strange current pushing us.

   As of now, it has stopped raining and the sun is poking out.  The wind is still 15 knots, but we are not making good headway against the waves.  I believe this whole rain storm started in on us when David announced yesterday that he was going to sleep on deck that night because of the heat.  Of course he didn’t get to sleep on deck, and it is as stuffy as ever below, as we have had to close the hatches to keep out the rain.