Day 7 Post By Jon
A Typical Day at Sea
Day 7 8:00 A.M. (1402 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
191 NM made good over last 24 Hours (may be a record for Avion)
Looks like Avion is now stretching her legs; our next goal is a 200+ day. This kind of performance requires team work and a constant focus on boat speed. We are still broad reaching (approximately 140 degrees off the wind) so there isn’t a lot of sail trim so the critical factor rests primarily on the helmsman. So I thought I would take a little time today to work through a typical day on the boat. I will use my experience as the guide and explain a few variations of the other crew members along to way.
Day 7 2:13 P.M. (1353 NM from Hawaii)
I just got off watch and still a little wired from the great ride we just had so I thought this would be a good time to lay out my day. My day starts at 2:00 A.M. by a gentle tug on the leg by Tom, who is ready for me to take his place on watch. The temperature is warm and relatively dry so far so I usually strip off the top layer to sleep. Now getting ready for watch doesn’t require as much “gearing up” as it did the first few days out the gate because most of the heavy foul weather gear has been stowed away in the wet lockers. I’m typically wearing a one layer of full under garments a light sun resistant tech shirt and a sun resistant light pants. Early morning I add a wind resistant light jacket over that then the inflatable life jacket. The life jacket has 2 tethers, a hand held radio that will radio out my lat/long position, a strobe light, a whistle, and a knife. The reason for 2 tethers is that you can always be attached to the boat while moving around. This is all dawned before climbing the companion way of 6 steps before entering the cockpit. This is a critical moment because the 2 or 3 crew members are watching closely to my next move because it potentially provides them with an opportunity for a Mai-tai. If I do not attach my tether to the lifeline before making that final step out of the companion way and onto the cockpit floor you owe the crew a pitcher of Mai-Tais. They tend to look closely at Juan because they know there is a potential Juanism in the making that will provide a constant source of entertainment and libation. Understanding this potential cash flow issue Jon tends to take command and doesn’t provide Juan the opportunity to dip into his cash reserves. Knowing Juan he would enjoy sharing the Mai-Tais with his crew mates at Jon’s expense. I remember a time when a female sailing friend of ours once asked my late wife Jean who she preferred Juan of Jon. Having never heard this asked before and not knowing her response I paid close attention. She thought about it for a moment and then said Juan. I immediately responded with, “That’s not fair to Jon, he has to work so Juan can have fun”!
Once in the cockpit it takes a while to get oriented figuring out the wind, waves and sail set. I am typically still pretty sleepy so a good thing at this point is to ask your crew mates on board if they would like anything hot to drink. If so I heat up some water and fix the requested beverage, mine is typically a Mocha with decaf-coffee. The drinks vary from decaf-tea (Kent), to regular tea (John, usually specified as to the type), to hot chocolate (David), to coffee (Tom). I came close to finding out the hard way that having a hot beverage for your crew mate doesn’t exonerate you from the Mai-Tai rule! The remaining two crew members on watch usually allows the new crew member an hour or so to get oriented. The boat at this stage of the race typically only takes two to drive; one at the helm and one with the boomvang in hand to release if the boat starts to head up or the end of the boom touches the water. The boovan is a spring loaded cylinder with a 8 to 1 block that pulls down on the boom. Releasing it allows for wind to spill off the top of the main lowering the center of effort allowing the mast to list less which allows the helmsman to recover the boat stopping the flogging of the sails and a potential broach. This is a constant action because of the waves and variability of the wind. In these two positions there is little relaxing, especially for the helmsman. After an hour or so the helmsman is getting a little fatigued, this become evident by the other crew members when they notice more variation on the course and an increase in the required releasing of the boomvag. It is usually the other crew members that suggest that the hour is up and not the helmsman because this is by far the most fun position on the boat and like the night of Nico’s birthday I stayed well over my recommended 1 hours limit.
At this point the crew usually rotates if there isn’t another crew exchange on that hour. At 3:00 A.M. at we do not have a shift exchange so we shifted positions. While doing so Juan became a victim of one of David’s many practical jokes. While I was shifting my position to handle the continuous boomvang line my tether got twisted up with that line. David in a very compassionate tone said that he could help Juan out with his predicament. Nico at the helm started laughing wondering when Juan was going to notice that having the boomvag line rapped twice around his leg and once around his wrist in the process of being lassoed wasn’t exactly beneficial. Enjoying the moment Nico was taking great care not to allow the boat to be in a position to require the release of the boomvag line and wondering how a Cowboy from Wyoming could have such a thing happen to him!
Much to Juan relief John came up to relieve David reducing the probability of another practical joke and I shifted to the helm. At the time we were experiencing 20+ winds but the seas hadn’t developed over 4 feet so it wasn’t a constant E-Ticket ride but it did have its moments when the wind speed and a larger than average wave would combine to push Avion to 9 knots. By 5:00 A.M. I am ready for helm relief so when John asked if I was ready for shift position change I readily confirmed. The last hour usually is a combination of resting, handling the boomvang line or taking a short stent at the helm before the new crew member is fully acclimated. This basic pattern can change as to which hour you are at the helm based on the crew change timing, overall I average about 1.5 hours per shift at the helm.
Just before 6 A.M. I go down and wake Tom how comes on board and I crawl into the sack for some much needed shut eye. Tom spends a portion of his watch navigating and downloading new weather information and maintaining his log. At 8:00 A.M. he notes our Lat/long position and shoots off an email to the race committee. I wake up before 9:30 so I can fire up the SSB and check in to the Roll Call. The other radio net is the Children’s Hour at 5:00 P.M. where I will come below if my I’m on watch. The cooking, cleaning up, and various other duties are either performed by the third crew member not holding the helm tiller or the boomvang line or another crew member not on watch but up. We are having Dinner around 8:00 P.M. and usually we are all up for that unless one crew member is trying to catch some sleep at which time we keep the oven on warm until he gets up and fixes himself dinner before taking the last step onto the cockpit floor greeted by two crew members to Mai-Tais dancing in their heads.
Kent usually gets the dinner out of the cooler (still frozen after 7 days) and places it in the cockpit to thaw for dinner. John takes a stroll around the boat looking the any chaffing of lines or rigging ware. Kent placed a piece of hose on the guy line because John noticed some potential chaffing where it feeds through the spinnaker pole. He also placed some sail tape at the bottom of the sail where it was rubbing against the boom while the out haul was let in or out. At the 1 P.M. shift change with dowsed the Asymmetrical #3 spinnaker that has been flying for over 24 hours to see if the halyard holding it up was chaffing at the top of the mast. Seeing none we immediately raised but it hour glassed and Kent was able to quickly get it to unwrap itself without further incidents and reduced boat speed.
Before the spinnaker dowse David fixed a delicious late breakfast of Thai Oatmeal, yes it was a new one for me also. He fixed oatmeal with dried fruit (raisins, crasains, chopped up apricots, and two secret ingredients; orange apricot marmalade and peanut butter thus the reason he called it Thai Oatmeal! I even asked for seconds and I’m typically not an oatmeal fan.
It is now 3:30 P.M. so I’m going to go have some of what I call My Time; read, relax, nap, cleanup, or just sit on the rail and absorb the beauty of the ocean without a care in the world knowing that the boat is solid and the crew is more than competent.
Day 7 5:30 P.M. (1328 NM to Hawaii)
185 NM made good over last 24 Hours
The good news is that the wind has been holding strong and our last 24 hours of distance made good is still holding strong, the bad news is that one of our competitive boats did better. I just signed off of the Children’s Hour net a little disappointed, they reported us in 4 place, dropping from 3 since the second day. We were able to verify that the ranking they are giving are distance made good to Hawaii adjusted for handicap. There is still a long ways to go.
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