I awoke at 4:45, 15 minutes before I was due on watch. The first thing I noticed was the boat was riding much nicer than it had all night. Hmmmm "nice" I thought. Less than 5 minutes later the boat began to rock and roll. Ivor called into the cabin. For me? My watch? No... He wanted King. I hunkered down under the sheets while King was digging for his clothes. As he moved to leave the cabin he announced it was my watch; time to crawl out.
In the cock pit Ivor and King took care of bringing in the jib a bit. We already had one reef in the main and did not want to go on deck in the dark unless absolutely necessary. The weather had turned stormy and we had just been hit by a frontal line packing 30 k winds. The shortened jib seemed to do the trick.
The remainder of the day was dreary and rainy. The barometer has been falling like a stone since last night. Winds inched into the low 20s but were mainly 17-19 from the S. Herb's instructions from last night indicated winds would build during the late afternoon. Tomorrow we are expecting 20-25 k all day as the storm finally passes us. With luck, we will finally be able to turn N on Saturday to begin our turn toward the Azores.
The crew is holding up well but we are all ready to have this system get past us. Lots of sleeping and reading. Even King has put his To Do list aside and put his headphones on to listen to an audio book.
Friday June 22
Herb's report for us last night was straight and to the point. We would have gale force winds on Friday. He wished we were further S. where the winds would be in the 25 k range but nothing we can do about that at this point.
We added a 2nd reef to the main. Everyone had retuned to the safety of the cockpit and Ivor just shut off the engines. One minute he is sitting at the wheel then in a slow motion tilt he, along with the captain's chair, fell through the air and crash to the floor at the bottom of the steps leading into the door. Miraculously he was not seriously hurt. A small cut on his ankle and a few bruises he will no doubt feel in the morning. The chair, well another story. It is now strapped to the back of the cockpit for lack of a better place. It appears the weld holding the chair to the deck gave. Fixable in Horta but in the meantime standing at the wheel becomes a bit awkward.
The night saw 25-30k winds as promised. Ostinato did well. I continue to spend a lot of time in the horizontal position. The wind fell to 20K out of the SE during the morning but began to build again around 11:00. Ostinato was doing 8 K so it was decided to add the third reef to the main to make the ride a bit more comfortable. Following this effort, I threw turkey sandwiches at the guys and went back to bed.
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| Where the captains chair used to be |
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| The chair has been strapped in until we reach Horta for repairs |
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