Equipment Failures – Page 3 – Have Wind Will Travel

April 12, 2014 – Keys Log: Day 10 (Part Duex) – Jenn-AAAYYYY!!

May 18, 2014May 19, 2014anniedike

Apparently April showers do not bring May flowers on our boat. We had just popped back out into the Gulf out of Clearwater Pass, enjoying one of the best sails yet of our trip, when we were showered with ball bearings from above. Phillip and I gently made our way up onto the foredeck to try and figure out what in the heck on the boat had just totally busted. We each started picking up these little bronze looking balls on the way that were lying all over. It was clear they were bearings, but to what exactly? We inspected the drum at the base of the forestay that furls the Jenny.

She looked fine, but we could tell the bearings in the drum were the same type that had rained on the boat, so we figured it had to be the swivel shackle at the top. We knew we were going to have to let the Jenny down to have a look at it. Not a real problem, yet. Perhaps we could fix it … We were being optimistic.

Phillip started to uncleat the Jenny halyard at the mast to lower the Jenny, and I positioned myself on the foredeck, ready to grab and flake her as best I could while Phillip eased her down. But, there was no easing about it. As soon as Phillip uncleated the halyard and let just a little slack in it, our big, whopping (135%) Jenny all came toppling and tumbling down onto the foredeck. Wha-boom! Thankfully, she fell so quick, she landed all in a heap, and – more importantly – all on the boat. Whew!

We wrapped her up with the Jenny sheets and secured her on the foredeck.

And, she looked so sad there. All tied up in a ball on the deck … Instead of the bright-eyed, fresh-faced Jenny we saw in the early parts of Forrest Gump,

ours looked more like the strung-out, cocaine-snorting leaper she turned into.

Yep, that’s the one.

Our Jenny was totally busted.

Jenn-AAAAYYYY!

Unfortunately, the bad news just kept coming. We found the reason the Jenny had come all tumbling down at once when Phillip let some slack in the line was because the halyard shackle had come apart. There are two parts to the shackle that raises our Jenny: 1) the part that clips to the head of the sail and spins when the Jenny furls and unfurls, and 2) the part that clips to the halyard and remains still when the Jenny furls.

Hence the ball bearings in between. The really bummer part about what happened to our halyard swivel was that, when Phillip let just a little slack in the line, the shackle came apart – right about here –

and the part that attaches to the head of the sail came down, while the part that clips to the halyard stayed … Yep, you guessed it. At the top of the mast. Not ONE DAY later on this trip and we had another bloody halyard stuck up at the top of the mast. I mean …

We inspected the part of the shackle that had come down – the part that attaches to the head of the sail – and she did look to be in semi-working order, assuming the ball bearings were put back in.

We didn’t see any obvious crack or defect. But, we had no idea what the other piece that was still at the top of the mast looked like. It was clear there was going to be yet another mast ascension in this mate’s future to retrieve yet another halyard.

We began the troubleshooting process, which on our boat generally starts by whipping out what we call the “manuals bag” – an old canvas bag our previous owner kept on the boat that is filled to the brim with the owner’s manual to every single part and system on the boat. I’m telling you – manuals are key. Keep them (all of them!) and read them first when a system fails. It’s amazing what you’ll learn.

After a quick review of the manual for our Harken furling system, we were definitely of the opinion we had perhaps pulled the halyard up too tight when we raised the Jenny after having the UV cover re-sewn during our Keys preparations.

The halyard should be within the top 4″ of the foil, they said …

Snug but not too tight they said …

As if that can be determined with any kind of precision. (Insert frown here). But, we figured we had pulled her up too tight when we raised her, causing pressure on the joint between the part that attaches to the halyard and the part that attaches to the sail, resulting in the pop and shower when we were furling the Jenny. We certainly didn’t mean to, but it seemed we had caused the failure. Once we started to think it back through, though, we were actually surprised to find the two pieces of the shackle had somehow miraculously held together until the very moment we had decided to drop the sail, when we were ready for her to fall.

Can you imagine if the shackle had come apart in heavy winds, when the Jenny was under full load? The whole thing would have crashed into the water … Along with the Jenny sheets … And what if we had been motoring? And one of the sheets had caught in the prop? What if … When we actually started to think about it, we started to consider ourselves incredibly lucky that it had happened the way that it did. Perhaps Jenny was looking out for us after all. Maybe she does know what love is …

Once we had pretty much diagnosed the problem – we knew we no longer had a furling Jenny – we started working toward a solution. We started getting some of our cruising buddies on the horn to let them know what happened and get their thoughts. We were somewhat close to Punta Gorda, where our previous owner used to keep the boat, so Phillip also decided to call him to ask for a recommendation for a good marina in the area. He referred us to Embree Marine, where apparently they had done some work on our boat before. We called a few times, but unfortunately no answer. But, it was a Saturday, and we began to realize we likely weren’t going to be able to actually talk to anyone about repairs until Monday. And, to add just a little more dung to our already-heaping pile, Phillip did some research on our Harken furling system (checked their website and some sailing blogs) and found that the fine folks at Harken don’t make the halyard swivel for our furling system anymore. Apparently, ours was the Model 1 series, and they were now on like Model 7. There was the real possibility we were going to have to have a whole new furling system put on the forestay.

Like I said, when it rains, it pours …

But – you remember our motto for that day? If you don’t, let me remind you —

Wasn’t nothing gonna slow … us … down! Whoa-NO!

We had to keep on movin’! And, so we did. We knew we were going to have to pull out of the Gulf and into St. Petersburg for repairs. But, it was getting to be late in the afternoon, so we decided we would anchor for the night and make our way into Tampa Bay tomorrow. Phillip started checking the maps and the cruising guides, and we found Egmont Key. The cruising book described it with “tall palm trees, clear, and glistening waters, where couples stroll along the white beaches without a care.”

“Without a care … “ We could be that! Who needs a furling Jenny? I mean, really? Sailors have been hoisting their Jennies for hundreds of years. We were either going to get her repaired or hoist her the old-fashioned way. Let’s pull on into this anchorage, make us some dinner, and keep on enjoying this trip, shall we? We made it to a KEY! And it was gorgeous there. Sugar white sands, a beautiful old light house, crystal green water. It was perfect.

We dropped anchor and jumped in for the first swim of the trip!

“That’ll be two dollars, ma’am.”

Then we took a nice shower in the cockpit.

Ahhh …

Then it was cocktails at sunset.

Phillip waved to the cruise ships that were coming through Egmont Channel.

Then we cooked up some amazing crab cakes with red peppers and the Captain’s own homemade roumalaude sauce.

Yum!

And, called it a night. We’d deal with whatever the Jenny had in store for us tomorrow.

We were on anchor, nice and secure. Nothing could bother us now …

April 12, 2014 – Keys Log: Day 10 (Part One) – Rain On Our Parade

May 14, 2014May 14, 2014anniedike

I woke to find a friend on our stern line the next morning.

He didn’t even move as we rustled around in the cockpit and readied the boat for another passage. He just watched us inquisitively and minded his own business. I almost hated to shoo him away when we were ready to leave. But, we were ready to leave! We were heading back out into the Gulf that morning to make the approximate 100 mile (24 hour) run to Charlotte Harbor to meet up with our friend Johnny and his son, who were anchored out in Cayo Costa. That was the plan anyway.

We waved at the rising sun and made our way back out into the Gulf.

Now, when we came in the previous day, we unfortunately ran aground on the shoaling around the little island just after the bridge.

Right around here we believe:

After talking with the dockmaster at the marina, we decided to take the longer route this time, around the little island, where the channel is deeper.

There will be no running aground today, thank you!

We had one of the best sails yet of the trip that morning.

“Hoist them sails there, Mate!”

“You got it, Cap’n!”

The water around Clearwater really is the most brilliant green. Like torqouise but not so blue. This is the closest replica I could find:

They call it #00ff83. It’s 0% red, 100% green and 51.4% blue. But, I’ll tell you, it’s heaven. The most beautiful sight to see under the hull of your boat.

It was just gorgeous. And, we had a great east wind, right on our port bow, around 10 knots. As the Captain would say, “We were cooking!” It was a great sailing day.

And, for my fellow sailing blogger on the Sundowner – this one’s for you Dani!

Rockin’ the selfie!

We did get backwinded at one point, though, when we were messing with the sails and it turned us around. No problem, really, to turn a circle and get back on track, but we did have the trolling line out when it happened, and it got caught on the rudder. But, that wasn’t a problem either. The Captain jumped right in for a nice swim in the Gulf and got her untangled.

AOK!

Ahhh! Nice and refreshing!

It was like nothing could get us down. I couldn’t help but keep singing, “Ain’t nothing gonna break-a-my stride. Nobody gonna hold me down!”

Whoa-NO …

THEY DID-UHHNT!! Relive this lovely 80’s leotard and sparkly gloves rendition HERE.

But, what we didn’t expect was rain. No, not that kind. The skies were clear, the sun was out, the conditions were ideal. And, yet, it still rained. The winds started to kick up, so we decided to reef the Jenny in a bit. As we were winding her in, we heard a loud POP from above and then it rained … Ball bearings … All over the boat.

April 8, 2014 – Keys Log: Day 6 – Wicked Wind of the West

May 2, 2014April 30, 2014anniedike

As we sat that morning on the boat sipping our coffee and cranking away on our laptops (yes, despite all evidence to the contrary, we do have to work – at times), we heard a boat pulling up next to us at the dock at Port St. Joe. A raucous voice rang out, “Pat, get that little furry thing of yours and grab a coat — I mean, it’s freezing out here!” Freezing? In Florida? That was enough to rouse us. We peeked out the portholes to find a friendly blonde carrying a little disheveled dog and a big, skipper-looking type handing her a jacket. We met them later – Bob and Pat (and Lucy the dog) on Maverick. They had been in the Bahamas since November and were just now making their way back to the Niceville. Great couple.

We caught up with them later and swapped tall sea tales over dinner, where Bob earned himself the fitting title of “Skipper Bob” – and for good damn reason – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were keeping a keen eye on the weather that morning. We had thought about leaving Port St. Joe that morning to motor the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (better known as “the ditch”) through Lake Wimico over to Apalachicola to anchor out for the night, then jump back out in the Gulf the next day to make our way to Clearwater. But, with the wind that was building when we woke that morning and the reports on the sea state out in the Gulf the next day, that plan quickly became very unlikely. But, we liked Port St. Joe. We had great facilities here and all resources within walking distance of the boat, so we were happy to stay another day to hold out for a better weather window, particularly if it increased the odds for two of our favorite things – kiting and pizza. Wind meant good conditions for kiting, and staying another day at port meant we were going to get to try that amazing wood fired pizza everyone and their little disheveled dogs had been talking about since we landed in PSJ. That sealed the deal. We decided to stay. And, as the wind started to pick up that morning, we decided to get out for some more kiting!

Throw on the wetsuits again!

Let’s do this!

It was blowing probably 16-18 mph when we got to our little cove. We pumped up the 12 meter and Phillip made a run out to test it out.

And, when I say he made a run out, I mean, ripping it upwind, flying across the cove, jumping, making it all look so damn easy.

He tends to do that (and sometimes I hate him for it). Kiteboarding is an incredibly challenging sport – at any level – which is one of the reasons Phillip and I love it so much, but the learning curve is very steep. It takes months, years even, to get to the point where you can get up and go safely in any conditions. It’s frustrating to stand on the shore and watch others do it, and make it look easy, when you want to join them so badly, but it’s also exciting in the same vein because it gives you so much to look forward to. It really is a sport you never tire of. There is always some new skill or goal (big or small) that you can strive for and, because it’s so hard, when you accomplish it, the reward is uniquely satisfying. While all of this is easy to say, it’s hard to remind yourself of it when you’re standing by, watching others go out and make it look effortless. But, after a few more aerial acrobats and stunts, Phillip finally came back, hooked me up to the kite and told me to give it a run. I didn’t hesitate!

But, the wind was really picking up and I was struggling to hold down all 12 of those meters. I ate it pretty good several times:

The first time I busted, we suffered our second equipment failure of the trip. The first was our starboard side lazy jack that failed during our first night sail. Now, we could add a busted kiteboard to that list. I crashed so hard it busted the pad right off of the kiteboard.

Smooth move, Annie.

But, that didn’t stop me. Since it was blowing so hard, we pumped up the 9 meter and headed back out. Phillip tore it up again, jumping, transitioning, and zipping all around the old derelict sailboat that sat in the cove.

He handed it over to me again, and I tore it up, for a bit, until I really tore it up.

During this wicked fun run, I landed hard on an oyster bed and tore a hole in the arse of my wetsuit.

Can’t see it?

There it is!

That thing is no longer airtight. But, that didn’t stop us either. I swapped to our bigger board – not ideal for these heavy winds (blowing approximately 18 at that time) – but it was the only one we had left. I was determined to make my way back to Phillip between the derelict sailboat and the shore. It was a tight squeeze and I tried 1,000 times (thank goodness Phillip is patient), but I finally did it!

Here she comes …

She’s making it …

She did it!

And, what do you think Annie does when she accomplishes something great? She jumps around like a giddy school girl, that’s what!

In all, aside from the crashes, bumps and bruises, it was one of the best kite sessions either of us had had in a while, so we were stoked.

We love kiting!

We headed back to the boat to clean up the kite gear – easy to do when you’ve got a spigot right next to the boat –

and get cleaned up for dinner. We were planning to meet our new dock-mates, David and Mary Lucas on Liza, for some of that famous wood fired pizza, and we were thrilled to hear they had met Bob and Pat earlier that day as well (it’s easy to make friends at such a friendly marina!) and had invited them to join us. Great! The more the merrier!

We hung up the wet stuff to dry and got cleaned up and shaved up. I snagged some ridiculous selfies while the Captain cut his hair.

But it was certainly time – he was becoming a long-haired hippie boy …

the sexy beast!

After clean-up, we rounded up the crew and headed for town. We quickly discovered Joe Mama’s Pizza is so popular, you really need a reservation, but it was only a 45 minute wait, so at Pat’s wise recommendation, we decided to head a few blocks over to The Thirsty Goat (don’t tell the Haughty boys!) for a pre-pizza drink! It was a lively atmosphere as they were just setting up for their weekly trivia night.

And as we were settling in, watching them set up for trivia, David, God love him, said “Well, I don’t know much about goats.” I thought I was going to die. The man is unexpectedly hilarious!

In all, it was a great group – David, Mary, Pat, Bob, Phillip and I:

We had a great time sharing a round at The Goat before hustling over to Joe Mama’s for some of that famous pizza, which was every bit as good as the folks at PSJ had been telling us for days.

But, while the pizza was phenomenal, we were really surprised by the sauceless, but perfectly savory, wings that came out first.

All very good eats! Oh, and “Skipper Bob.” Yes, let’s talk about how he got that name. We learned while chatting that Bob and Pat had been to the Keys many times so Phillip and I took the opportunity to ask them over dinner about some passages, inlets and anchorages around the Keys that we had heard were shallow and potentially hard to navigate. Bob’s response? “Nah, you just bump on through. If you hit bottom, just rev up the engine. It’ll bring the nose up and you can just skip on over to the next one. I’ve skipped my way in many times.” Phillip and I sat there wide-eyed and dumbfounded. We certainly had no intention of skipping our way into anything, but we liked Skipper Bob’s style all the same. Just skip on in there! We’ll never forget him. It was a great night and our last at Port St. Joe. We headed back to the boat in a fuzzy splendor congratulating ourselves on what a fine day we’d had and tucked in for a good night’s rest. Tomorrow – the ditch!

April 4, 2014 – Keys Log: Day 2 – Into the Black Abyss

April 20, 2014May 4, 2014anniedike

It laid limp and lifeless, strewn across the deck in a sad display of failure.

Our busted lazy jack. After inspection, we found the eyelet on the starboard spreader that the lazy jack was shackled to had detached entirely. Never to be seen

Humph! Well, it’s just a lazy jack. People have been raising and lowering their mains the UN-lazy way for thousands of years, so we figured we would just wing it. As long as we could secure the fallen line and get our sail up and back in the stack pack manually and zip her open and closed for UV protection, we were fine. But, it was little bit of a morale blow. It’s like you know things on the boat are going to break when you undertake a passage like this, but you hate to see it actually happen. For me, the boat tends to become an extension of me. It pains me to hear her groan and flex under strain, and seeing things on her rip, shear and break gives me a bit of a sinking, sickening feeling. I couldn’t resist the urge to lovingly pat the dodger and say “Sorry girl.” It wouldn’t be the first time I would do that, and certainly not the last, on this trip. A hard passage sometimes just can’t be avoided – that’s kind of the whole point of going offshore, but, damage to the boat is never easy to swallow – particularly on Day One of the trip.

But, we chalked it up. It’s just part of it. We were still on passage and needed to focus on the course, the weather and the hourly log entries. We secured the lazy jack lines and hunkered back in the cockpit, thankful for sunlight and visibility.

Yes, more sailing selfies! Phillip’s not much of a photographer and I’m a bit of a fanatic, anal retentive blog-documenter, HENCE – the perfect solution – selfies! Thank you “flip-around-option” on the iPhone. And, to quote my fellow cruising buddy Dani – “Without my quality selfies – it would be Phillip and Plaintiff’s Rest, followed solely by the paparazzi.”

After checking the chart and the weather and making some calculations, we decided at the rate we were going with the southeast wind dead on us, we weren’t going to make it to Clearwater, even on a straight haul, for another two and a half days. And, we were both a little tired from the rough night already. Plus, we were expecting a storm to come into Clearwater on Monday or Tuesday and we certainly didn’t want to be crossing the Gulf in that, or sitting in Clearwater waiting it out. We had always wanted to check out Port St. Joe (we’d heard great things!), so we made an executive decision to pull out of the Gulf and take refuge in Port St. Joe to wait out the weather. We set our course and noted the 53 nautical miles to go.

We had a great sail on Friday. It was nice wind and weather most of the day and Otto was doing all the work. Phillip and I took turns taking naps, reading, writing (the blog AND the log) and munching on turkey and manchego sandwiches.

Late that afternoon, Phillip and I were both stretched out in the cockpit, deep in our own literary worlds, when we were startled by a jolting, nearby “Pffft!” Phillip and I eyed each other quickly and leaned up. “Dolphins,” Phillip said. I figured as much but couldn’t get my brain to process fast enough to get the word out. Dolphins! was right. Not a second later, we heard another “Pfft!” right by the stern. I looked over and saw three dolphins popping their fins out of the water in unison. “Three!” I squealed, finding myself capable of only mono-syllable words and giddy girl noises. I scrambled for my phone to snap some shots.

Having missed the chance to document the last few dolphin sightings for a phone tragically left down below, I wasn’t going to miss this chance. I started making my way to the foredeck snapping a few shots along the way of what now appeared to be an eight-to-ten member dolphin squad. I got some great footage: Video HERE.

After a few minutes, eighteen pictures, approximately six squeals, and two videos later, the dolphins finally swam away — headed off to, I hope, intoxicate some other sailing vessel with their slick, sultry dance. Phillip and I plopped down in the cockpit breathing big sighs of contentment from their visit and let our thoughts lingered toward dinner. Ahhh … our freezer food.

Before we left Pensacola, we had made two hearty meals that we had frozen in gallon ziploc freezer bags for the passage, beef and pork bolognese and chicken and sausage gumbo. We had both decided the night before that the sea state was too rough to try to heat up anything down below. With five-foot waves, any movement down below is timed and orchestrated with the severe rocking of the boat. After you’ve been on the boat long enough, you can sense a heavy heeling coming and when it occurs, you know you have a one-to-two second window of opportunity to hop up fast and make the quick three steps to the next handhold and then wait again for the next break in motion. You just get used to it. Needless to say, the thought of doing anything down below, least of all boiling a big pot of water to heat up dinner, was easily nixed. Nope. It was turkey sandwiches, Cheez-its, grapes, chips and Pretzel Crisps the first night. Anything that could be easily grabbed and eaten by hand. Toddler food, pretty much. But, the sea had calmed down to about two-to-three foot waves by Friday afternoon and we decided it would be best to go ahead and eat our heartiest meal early in the afternoon in case the expected urge for a post-dinner nap struck us we could go ahead and get it out of the way before nightfall. So, around 2:00 p.m., we set to heating up the first of our frozen bagged meals – the beef and pork bolognese – which was a little bit of an adventure. I started a pot of boiling water and fumbled around with our pot clamps a bit, trying to get them to hold the boiling pot in place, but our fancy schmancy All-Clad pot was too big to allow the clamps to get a good foot-hold on it, which meant gimbling the stove (allowing it to tip freely with the boat), was not going to be an option. So, I decided to stand by and keep an eye on it and hold the bags up by hand.

Not too much work. Especially considering the reward. Once the bolognese was sufficently heated, we dumped it into cereal bowls and set to it.

Yum!

A nice hearty meal under our belts and exactly what we thought would happen, happened, we took turns taking nice leisurely naps in the sun. Knowing we had a full night of two-hours shifts ahead, there was no need for apology or explanation. When one of us got sleepy, we told the other “I’m going to shut my eyes for a bit” and that was that. “Sleep while you can” was the rule. If you felt it coming on and the conditions were calm, sleep was the best thing you could do for yourself. So, shut your eyes and get some!

And, it was a good thing we did, because the second night was even more exhausting as the first. Heavy – and I mean HEAVY – fog set in. Visibility was approximately 30 feet around the boat, at best. It was like driving your most prized possession through the pitched-black knowing full-well it may crash any second into something completely devastating.

We couldn’t see ANYthing. It was onward and forward into the black abyss with 25 feet, at least, of the most precious fiberglass, wood and steel charging in front of you. It was actually a good thing we were offshore because we knew we were nowhere near land and that ship traffic was unlikely, but you still have a fear that something’s going to come barreling through the mist and appear right in front of you at any minute. As a direct result of All is Lost, I now have a completely irrational fear of spontaneous hull breach by random bobbing shipping container. Thank you Robert Redford! I felt like I was easing my way into a busy intersection blindfolded, just waiting to hear the screech and crunch of the crash. The fog was absolutely horrid!

April 3, 2014 – Keys Log Day 1: Lazy Jack Snap!

April 17, 2014April 16, 2014anniedike

Clearwater by Sunday morning was going to be a two-day, three-night haul. The longest Phillip and I had ever undertaken together, but we were excited about it. Invigorated by the challenge and adventure of it. But, it was early in the trip – we were still feeding happily on excitement, adrenaline and the thrill of taking sailing selfies!

Look at me! I’m headed out to SEA!

We had a great sail out into the Gulf. The tide was coming out at the Pass and, even with a strong southeast wind pushing against us, it pretty much gushed us out of the pinchpoint at 4 knots. We motored through to be sure to stay in the channel, but once we were safely out, we cut the engine and clocked over southeast.

It was around dusk at that time, and I learned another of many important lessons in sailing. Don’t try to eat light when you’re sailing. “Oh, I’ll have the salad greens with the low-fat dressing, please.” No. That’s not going to cut it darlin’. We had been working on the boat all morning, packing up the last of the provisions, re-tying the Jerry cans and the anchor, running the solar lights, packing more provisions, filling the water tanks, etc. A lot of up and down the companionway stairs, hauling heavy items here and there, in general, some hard work. And, allst I had was a bowl of cereal and a little salad under my belt. Probably around 600 calories … total, and I’d probably burned about 2,469.82 calories, approximately, by that time. I was starting to feel a little pekish and convincing myself it was not seasickness. I’ve crossed the Gulf before, in 4 to 6 foot seas. I don’t GET seasick. But, I just felt weak, a little queasy, a little weird. Then Phillip mentioned the idea of dinner and it sounded like some grand revelation. Food?? Why yes, yes I would like dinner! And, let me tell you, I ate my friends. I started inhaling and choking down my fair share and thensome of the tuna salad we had brought for dinner while Phillip eyed me suspiciously as I shoved heaping forkful after heaping forkful clumsily into my mouth. And, he told me I needed to eat more. “You need to eat before you’re hungry,” he said. And, he was right. I should have stock-piled some energy hours ago. But, I wasn’t going to let this happen again. I started eating! A handful of almonds, three handfuls of pretzel crisps, followed by chocolate-covered pretzels, peanut butter Chex, trail mix, some snap pea crisps, some more almonds, before I finally just gave it up and inhaled a calorie-dense protein bar – much like the kind boxers scarf when they’re trying to get to the next weight class. I was ravenous, carnivorous, OM-nivorous. Eating anything in sight with unabashed abandon.

But, within minutes, I felt better. Much better. Food. Who knew? Ladies – it doesn’t matter if you’ll be slipping into a bikini later, if you’re sailing, you’re burning it off. Eat early and eat often.

Unfortunately, the wind was right on our nose all evening and into the night. We were taking long tacks back and forth, trying to make our way upwind but not making much ground. While underway, we entered our coordinates, as well as our heading, speed, the sea state, weather and other note-worthy items, in the log book.

The afternoon sail was nice, albeit not very productive, i.e. we didn’t make much ground toward Clearwater, but it was a comfortable sail. After the sun dropped down, we donned our safety gear and settled in for the evening.

Later in the evening, the wind picked up to 15 knots, and we put the first reef in the main, followed by the second, followed by a reef in the Jenny. The sea state was probably 4 to 5 foot waves, thoughout the night, which made for some rough wave jumps and crashes on the boat, all of which sound entirely manageable in the cockpit but horrific down below. When we started taking our two-hour shifts, it was hard to close your eyes and try to get some sleep when each wave sounds like the hull is cracking in half. It’s not, and some part of you deep down knows that, but another small part also asks “Are you sure? Was that a crack? Maybe I should get up and check … ”

That first night was pretty rough. We rode waves up and down, crashing water over the bow, and occasionally spraying us in the cockpit, and took turns getting fitful, disjointed pockets of sleep. But, the true champion that night was Otto — our auto pilot. That guy. I mean. Damn! He held through howling 15 knot winds and rolling 5 foot seas. He held much more than I ever thought he was capable of. He would, of course, on occasion, lose his ability to grip the wheel. It would spin freely under his belt, his motor screeching out trying to stop it, and then he would follow up with a cackling cascade of beeps to let you know he was losing it. As much as you wanted to curse him. (Okay, I did often – “Damn you Otto!”), you really couldn’t. He held the wheel probably 80% of the night. I mean, a little slippage was allowed. But, the problem was, if you weren’t at the wheel the moment he slipped, by the time you jumped back there, clipped in, got your bearings and turned Otto off it was sometimes too late. He’d fallen too far off course and you were in a jam, having to turn the boat around in a large circle and catch the wind with a forceful pop around the backside. Needless to say, it was a long night, and was certainly hard on the boat.

We woke the next morning to find out just how much. Phillip was holding the sunrise shift and when I started to blink to, thankful to see light pouring in through the windows, Phillip heard me stir, and shouted down to me, “I’ve got bad news.” Oh-no, I thought. That’s just what we need. I scrambled up the companionway to see what he was referring to. And, there it was, the remains of our lazy jack lines (on our new stack pack) strewn haplessly across the deck. The eyelet on the spreader that held them up had snapped clean off.

Well, they must be called lazy jacks for a reason. Perhaps we could handle the not-so-lazy route for the rest of the trip. In all, considering the night we had, it seemed a minor loss, really. One day down and only one piece of (lazy-slash-luxury) equipment down. We shrugged our shoulders and continued south. What do you have in store for us Day Two?