Day 97 – Lumpy
Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sun 20 Mar 2022 10:40
Course: E Speed: 6.5 knots
Wind: W, F7 Sea: rough
Swell: WNW 3 m
Weather: overcast, showers, cool
Day’s Run: 157
My forehead, along with Sylph and the rest of me, continues to make good progress towards the Crozets; however, it is not healing as well as I would have liked, with some painful little lumps that refuse to go away. Over the last few days some scratch marks have become evident that were not visible before so I have taken to applying some antibiotic cream to these areas as well as taking the antibiotic tablets, and have covered most of the lumps with a sterile dressing. Hopefully we will see more of an improvement in the next couple of days.
Last night, having attended to my bodily woes, I left Sylph running before a near gale with three reefs in the main and 40% jib poled out to port. GPS was showing Sylph doing a consistent eight knots which is at the upper end of my comfort zone, but I figure there was at least a half knot of current in that number. I inspected the upper deck a couple of times during the night to see whether we needed to reduce sail further but each time concluded that there was no excessive strain on the rig and the wind vane self-steering was coping well with the following seas including the odd hard break. While a wave breaking on her stern would inevitably skew her around and cause her to heel heavily to starboard, she did not skew so far as to cause the headsail to go aback, and the wind vane, despite only being on the minimum gain setting, brought her back on course within about 30 seconds. Again I figured that if I reduced sail Sylph would likely be overtaken by more breaking seas and would take longer to regain her heading. So we continue to run before the force seven to eight W’ly wind.
The wind is expected to start easing later tonight so hopefully things might be a little less lumpy all round and we might have a more restful night than last night.
Ship’s clocks advanced one hour to time zone -3.
All is well.