april, 2004

hi folks --

we met our first mediterranian storm this week.  yikes.  i am beginning
to understand what all the other sailors are saying about too much wind
or not enough, confused rough seas, marginal weather prediction accuracy,
and generally a poor choice for a cruising area.  but we are here and 
i am certainly learning, hopefully before anything really bad happens.

we left estepona, about 30 miles east of gibraltar, early sunday morning
with weather forecast to be up to 20 knots sunday afternoon, decreasing
to 15 and then 10 by sunday evening and about 10-15 on monday and tuesday.
winds from the west.  should be perfect since we would be sailing east
so the apparent wind speed would be reduced by our boat speed and 15 knots
is perfect for my boat.  we planned an overnight sail, our first, trying
to reach cartegena spain by the following evening, 229 miles away. or if
that was too far, we had other choices a bit before cartegena.  sounded
like a reasonable plan.

started out with full sails, rigged wing and wing using a pole to hold
the jib out so that the main sail didnt get to steal all its wind.
by 3pm we were reefed (reduced the area of our sails) to the third (and 
unfortunately last) reef point and still going about 8 knots thru the water.
8 knots is great, but is too fast for at night when you want the boat to
relax and just cruise along.  at this point i made the first of many mistakes
by not realizing that 25+ knots of wind by 3pm meant that by 5pm there would
be big sloppy waves and the wind from behind made steering hard and we should
have high tailed it to port.  instead i tried to reduce our sail area by
pulling in the jib some.  this worked for a while.  but we were still going
too fast and as the waves built up, we were unable to keep the main sail
from jibing.  jibing is bad if out of control.  we had preventers rigged
so that the boom would not jibe (come careening across the boat decapitating
everything in its way) but the sail itself would jibe, with the wind hard
on one side and then as a wave pushed us around, suddenly hard on the other
side.  not sure why i didnt just take the main down.  excuses that come to
mind were things like it was too rough to go forward and wrestle it down
and tie it up or the wind should die down any moment according to the 
forecast.  we rolled the jib all the way in and were still going 8 knots
with the main at the 3rd reef.  it wasnt tight at the back and we tried to
tighten it thinking that might make it smaller and so better.  couldnt.
meanwhile the wind was in the 30s gusting to the 40s and the seas were
getting rough and sloppy and disorganized.  also some time along, the 
autopilot and wind vane couldnt steer so we had to steer by hand.  at one
point i was steering and a wave came from behind and suddenly i was standing
in a foot of water, the whole cockpit full.  gets you cold and wet really
quickly.  with the full cockpit, the engine switch shorted out so that the
engine acted as if the key was turned on and you wanted to start it.
fortunately i had had a master electrical switch put in (thanks andy) and
so could turn it off with that big red master key.  sometime during this
whole messy storm, we noticed that you could see daylight thru the main
sail.  a flashlight showed it to be just the plastic thingies that hold
the sail into the track in the mast, about 3 or 4 had broken right together
from the sail whapping itself left and right as we jibed it accidently.
and still i didnt have the sense to deal with the situation (take the
sails down, hove to, use my storm sail, etc).  finally decided the wind
was not going to die down, if anything it was getting stronger and we needed
to stop the boat from going so fast (hit 9.3 knots).  so we let out a little
jib (we thought) but the wind took more, but we were able to crank it in
and only have about 5 ft of jib out and then with the engine could turn
into the wind and backwind the jib, effectively hoving to.  the wind howled
and the sails flapped, but we were finally only going 2-3 knots and in a
safe direction (right on course actually).  by this time the main had torn
at the top and more of its plastic goodies had burst.  it was still too
rough (i thought) to go forward and take the main down and it was sort of
helping with the balance as we hove to. at daylight, when the wind was
down to 25 knots, we took the main down, rolled in the jib, wrestled the
jib pole down, and motored in to the nearest port, almeria spain.  that
briefly is our first gale, force 8-9 winds, boat wise. now crew-wise ...

my crew for this adventure was fritz from zurich who is a good sailor and
had been on wonderland from the azores to portugal last summer, maja his
girlfriend who had never sailed before, susha and libby, my nieces who had
sailed some but never in more than 20 knots of wind.  the plan was for fritz
and i to take turns with the night time watches (5 hrs each) and have one
of the girls (3+ hrs each) be the with us so there were two people awake or
semi-awake.  when the weather turned bad we changed gears and fritz and i
stayed in the cockpit and sent the others to bed.  all were feeling queasy
except libby who plotted our position for us every hour since she couldnt
sleep.  the girls, who had never seen a real storm before, or big waves, or
a jerky bouncing all over boat, were definitely scared.  i tried to tell
them we would be ok, but somehow i dont think they really believed me.  not
totally sure i believed me either, but wondy is a strong boat and i believe
in him, if not in my ability to sail him.  the idea that the girls should sleep
was pretty silly -- the wind was howling, the boat was pitching around, pots
and pans were sliding across the floor, the food cabinets behind the good
sea berths were opening on their own and bombarding the occupants with food.
libby was trying to sleep with one foot holding the food locker closed.

bottom line of the adventure is that the main was torn near the top, right
across from the luff to the leach, but the lines in the outside hem of the
sail were not cut or damaged. 11 of the sail slides were broken.  and 
even more scary, the jib furling line was chafed about half thru.  this is
more scary, because if it broke the tiny bit of jib we let out on purpose
would suddenly have become the full sail and we would have been in real
trouble.  the furling line had broken in the bahamas and i had just recently
replaced it, so there was something wrong with the way it was run that was
letting it beat itself to death.  the pulleys it goes thru are held to
the life line stations with a bolt, and on one of them, the screws were
toward the rope but on all the others the nut and screw end sticking out
were toward the rope.  we changed them around and wrapped the whole insides
with rigging tape to make even the screw heads softer and gentler on the
rope.  we also changed the position of the first block because the rope
rubbed on the stantion and had over the years worn a sharpish flat spot
in it.  not sure we have really fixed it, but at least we know to watch
it and where it is likely to chafe.  we also bought a second replacement
furling line so we have a new one installed and a new spare and the old
one that could perhaps be used in a pinch.

what all have i learned.  well, med weather changes in an hour what it
takes a whole day to do in the open atlantic.  storm sails ought to be
rigged and used, not stored under a bunk in a locker.  reducing sail
sooner rather than later is a good thing.  i cant handle my jib pole
by myself (maybe its too long, its about 3 feet longer than the sail),
even though it is rigged neatly up the mast and just needs to slide
down and back up again.  foul weather gear doesnt do any good if it's
on the cockpit seat instead of your body when the big wave hits you
broadside. it sure is good to have a second experienced person on board
(thanks fritz).

for two days after we arrived in almeria, the boat looked like a gypsy
caravan with the entire surface and a lot of the pavement beside the 
boat covered with drying clothing, line, dinghy, shoes, gloves, etc.
looked like a disorganized garage sale.

while waiting for our fixed main sail, we have discovered wireless
internet in the marina and with my (lynda's actually) little antenna
and lucent card i can sit in bed and write this to you all.
and the cost of the dock is only 7 euros a day, the cheapest we have
had except for anchorages and the occasional free dock in portugal. got
invited for yummy grilled fish last nite by some local sailors.  very
tasty.

heading again for cartegena and the ballerics when we have our sail back
and the weather looks right.

hugs.

-evi