LTY UPDATE for passage from west side of Fiji up to Majuro Marshall Islands via Rotuma
Day #18
Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
(Remember we are on the other side of the International dateline than most of you)
LTY time: 22:04 Wed Jan 15th (LTY time = UTC +12)
Location: about 52nm S of Majuro
Position: 06 06.542 N, 171 24.111 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 4-5kts (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 352 (COG = Course over Ground, my GPS based compass heading)
Wind: 13-28 kts E Apparent
Seas/Swell: 2.0m @ 6 sec out of E
Weather: Another beautiful day for sailing, mostly clear skies, few clouds and good winds 8 to highs of 26 mostly of the ENE to E
Air temp: 84.2F 28C
Sea temp: 88 F 31.0 C
Barometer: 1014
Distance travelled: 1349nm
Distance to Majuro anchorage: 70nm NN
SAILING the BALANCED LIFE
Well, everything continues to work amazingly well with the jury rigged lines we have coming from the aft edge of the broken rudder up to the decks on each side. These are keeping the rudder in place and are allowing us to make small adjustments to the rudder angle and thus counter the turning forces from the sails and balance them out. This is then how we are steering the boat now making small adjustments to these lines to change the rudder angle and then adjusting the sails to get the boat in a balanced state on a set course in a given set of wind conditions. We’ve been learning how to tweak these lines to keep the rudder at a set angle and counteract the forces from the sails and that has been working out very well all last night and today so we are now just 50nm south of the east end of the Majuro atoll and should be up there tomorrow some time. Hard to estimate our ETA just yet as our speeds vary quite a bit with the varying wind and sea conditions. If we can get up to Majuro and over the 15nm or so along the north coast to the pass and if the wind and seas are cooperating then we may go in tomorrow. If not we’ll wait till the next morning, Friday for us, and go in then.
We are in Email contact with some good friends in Majuro, Karen and Cary on Seal, and they have kindly offered to help out and assist us in getting through the pass with their power boat if needed so as usual we are VERY well taken care of. We should be up to the east end of Majuro by tomorrow morning sometime depending on how things go here tonight and then we can see what the seas and winds are like and what time we would be at the pass and decide if we are going to go in tomorrow or Friday. The pass into Majuro atoll is very wide and well-marked as this is the home of the world’s largest tuna fleet and other commercial traffic so it does not present any significant challenges to get through. The question is how well we can steer LTY when she is powered by the engine and prop. We will do some testing of that tomorrow by running those lines coming up the sides of the hull from the aft end of the rudder, through some turning blocks up on deck and over to our winches. In theory this should allow us to move the rudder while under way and thus steer the boat while motoring through the pass. If that doesn’t work we will ask Cary to come out with his power boat “Wasabi” and help tow/steer us in.
Weather wise we had a great day with mostly clear skies and lots of sun all day. The only problem has been varying winds from almost none at all for a few hours around noon so we just sat still, to a few squalls which passed by and gave us changing wind directions and winds up to 35 knots a few times. Overall though the weather was great and earlier tonight it was clear and bright with the almost full moon lighting our way. Right now it is just after midnight and I’ve got a storm going through with winds up to almost 50kts so it’s a bit rough but not likely to last too long and the rudder is holding well so LTY is flying along at almost 6 knots at times.
So in spite of or perhaps because of these latest challenges, Christine and I continue to marvel at how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to experience all this and how it gives us all new perspectives on the wonders of living, loving and learning. We may take us longer to get to Majuro than we thought and we will be arriving with lots of new jobs to do but we’ll also be smiling inside and out with the new stories we have to tell, the increased gratitude and satisfaction we feel and we’ll enjoy the sunrises and sunsets each day hence a bit more than we do already so it is all good.
1am UPDATE!! Well, just as I was typing that last note there was a sudden BANG! and lots of noise out on the port side deck and it didn’t take me long to see that the headsail had ripped. For the last while there has been a small section of seam that had come unstitched just off the clew which is the ring at the bottom aft end of the sail which the control sheets/lines attach to but it had been holding fine up to now and we were waiting till we got some calm weather to resew it as we have to drop the whole sail to the deck to get at this section to repair it. However that last batch of 50 knot winds was just too much I guess and so it has let go and torn all the way across the seam. Christine got up when she heard all the noise and we’ve got it all furled up safely now so we can continue to sail just very slowly. I don’t want to try to bring it all down and feed on the other headsail we have now in the dark and the midst of this rather large storm so I’ve sent her back to bed for now and we’ll look at doing this in the morning when there is good light and hopefully some calm seas and wind. In decent conditions this isn’t a difficult thing to do at all and we should also be able to resew the sail with the good sail maker sewing machine we cary on board so all in all nothing too severe here at all and it will just set our arrival time in Majuro back a bit.
Stay tuned folks! Never a dull moment here on the good ship Learnativity and we’ll be back to you with another update tomorrow.
Christine, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog
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