avionbianca   Blog for s/v Avion

As I write, Megan is cooking a hot dinner. She tells me it is easier to cook when the boat is flat. Over the past few days, cooking was almost impossible, althought she did make us a hot dinner last night as well. Hot food in the tummy feels so good, and confirms that we are living the old saying, “sail, eat sleep.”

Today has been warm enough to shake the wet foulies, take towel-showers and put on clean dry clothes. The sun came out for awhile, and dried out the boat. I cooked bacon and eggs for my crew. Clouds filled in during the afternoon, but it stayed warm and windy, in the 18 to 24 knot range. We have been sailing with the A7, the small, heavy weather blue asymmetrical sail, and hitting speeds over ground on steady 9 knots, and when the ocean swells round underneath the boat and pushes her on the hip, she surges up to 10 to 12 knots. It gets quite exciting when there is a sudden gust of wind, and a big wave surges and lifts the aft up and the rudder looses it’s bite, and we with a lot of sudden pressure on the helm, she will round-up. Avion is resilient and always recovers, with lots of pumping of the tiller by the driver, and perhaps a release of the spinnaker sheet. It is exciting sailing, with every moment being unique.

We are dialing in the boat systems and routines. She was kind of wet, and we had to dry out clothes and various wet spots, but now she is dry again and feels good. I rand the batteries down too low yesterday, and at some point, the instruments start displaying wierdly inaccurate numbers. I had seem this once before, so I knew the cause and the solution. Fired up the engines and ran the alternator for 2 hours to resolve it.

We have decided to switch back to the #4 jib around 8pm, and then next question is do we gybe tonight or tomorrow morning. Such important decision deserve lots of discussion. We all like to go fast, but it would also feel good to get back on a course heading in the general direction of Hawaii. This is where the finish line awaits us. But I must say, in some ways, this kind of amazing ocean sailing is the real finish line. Stay tuned.