TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Dawn broke slowly as the fog we’ve become accustomed to engulfed us once

again. The wind grew extremely light and we ghosted along in our own

gray bubble; as best we could tell, the edge of the world was only one

hundred feet away in all directions. If the world had been flat, we

could easily have sailed right off the edge without ever seeing it.

We found the magic sail combination with our lightest spinnaker, set at

close reach, with the main over trimmed to help the kite breath. Dawn

Star is a heavy boat and while it takes her a while to get going, she

also loves to coast along even when the wind dies. This is extremely

helpful in conditions like the ones we’ve had since the start of the

race. Driving with only a finger tip in the wheel, and concentrating on

staying one step ahead of the wind in the sails allows us to make 3-5

knots of speed in only 3-7 knots of wind. At times the boat would coast

along at 3.5 knots when the wind dropped to 1.5 knots.

The day became sunny for a while and the wind cooperated nicely, giving

us better speed than we’d forecast last night. So far we’re making good

headway on our chosen course. What happens next will depend on how well

the forecast plays out. Our northerly course above all our competitors

should see us in better breeze sooner than the rest, but only time will

tell.

Besides sailing the boat, we’ve had some other unexpected projects to

take care of. While heating water for hot drinks, the propane valve

decided to quit and we had no stove at that point. Not a good thing

considering all the frozen and other food we’re carrying that needs to

be heated or cooked. Cam and Will got that resolved by hunting down a

bad circuit connection and a blown fuse. Despite all the winch

maintenance before the race, one of our running back stay winches had

started complaining and on breaking it down, Jay discovered a broken

roller bearing cage. That was resolved by packing a piece of nylon sail

tie around the bearing shaft (see picture) and a prayer that this jury

rig will keep the cage from working under load. Only time will tell…

Next, we discovered that the fridge wasn’t running. A bit more trouble

shooting by Will and Cam to find the control box wasn’t turning on. We

suspect the culprit is a frozen relay, and I do mean frozen as all the

dry ice in the box probably seized it up. We hot wired around the

control box for now, perhaps it’ll start working in a few days when the

dry ice dries up.

Trying to get a little shut eye on the off watch can also be hard when

there’s a coast guard jet buzzing your vessel trying to see if you’re a

yacht they’re looking for. We got on the radio with them to confirm our

identity, luckily, we weren’t the yacht in question. They raced off to

continue the search and we heard them check in with our competition

somewhere else. We hope they find the yacht they’re looking for and

everything turns out all right. At least we know it’s not a vessel in

the race.

We spotted dolphins and tuna but the most curious thing was an upturned

sea boot, floating along on its own. There wasn’t anything in it so

hopefully the seaman that owned it is still on a boat somewhere else.