The wind slackened at night, as it usually does after the land along the coast has cooled off and the convective air currents settle down. When I came on watch at 11:00p the wind had pretty much stopped. The headsail was flagging and the main was switching back and forth with the swell. Oh well, a good time for a blog update I guess. I rolled up the headsail halfway so it wouldn't meet the same fate as the spinnaker and got to typing.
Paul came on deck a few minutes later, saw the wacky half-furled, wing-on-wing sailplan and asked what was up. I shrugged and said, "No wind." He said, "Let's straighten this out." He jibed, unfurled the heasail all the way, tweaked the trim, and suddenly we're moving along at five knots, most on the wind created from our own forward motion. Impressive. Most boats I sail on do well to maintain steerageway in wind that light.
In another...let's call it learning experience, I was on watch with Ray during the night trying to place the pattern of lights off our port side. It was a mostly white light, well off the water. Could be a steaming light from another boat, but I couldn't see any other nav lights with which to orient it. It had a twinkle of red, so it could also be the masthead tricolor of a boat with its port quarter facing us. But that didn't make sense because we were obviously on converging courses: the light was getting brighter and higher off the water. Our relative positions were changing only very slowly, so I kept a close watch on it to see how the mystery would unfold at first light. Once ther was just a hint of backlighting in the sky, I could see that there was no mast, or boat, under the light. It was Venus.
Paul came on deck a few minutes later, saw the wacky half-furled, wing-on-wing sailplan and asked what was up. I shrugged and said, "No wind." He said, "Let's straighten this out." He jibed, unfurled the heasail all the way, tweaked the trim, and suddenly we're moving along at five knots, most on the wind created from our own forward motion. Impressive. Most boats I sail on do well to maintain steerageway in wind that light.
In another...let's call it learning experience, I was on watch with Ray during the night trying to place the pattern of lights off our port side. It was a mostly white light, well off the water. Could be a steaming light from another boat, but I couldn't see any other nav lights with which to orient it. It had a twinkle of red, so it could also be the masthead tricolor of a boat with its port quarter facing us. But that didn't make sense because we were obviously on converging courses: the light was getting brighter and higher off the water. Our relative positions were changing only very slowly, so I kept a close watch on it to see how the mystery would unfold at first light. Once ther was just a hint of backlighting in the sky, I could see that there was no mast, or boat, under the light. It was Venus.
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