4.3.18 @ 1000 Local, 1700 Zulu Day #9
Latitude: 13°56N Longitude: 118°43W Covered Distance Last 24 Hours: 131 Distance to the Marquesas: 1856 Distance from Punta de Mita, Mexico: 967 Weather: 70% clouds Winds: 10 knots from the NNE Sea State: 1’-3’ choppy swell NNE Barometer: 1013 Crew’s Mood: Excellent!
Experience!
The route of all is knowledge, but without experience and hands on trials and errors you may find yourself deficient in success. As we slowly splash through the wonderful Pacific Ocean, I some times ponder. You too? Well it happens to me frequently. Why do something this way or that way? Why make certain decisions from a given set of input factors? Jilly will ask me to teach her about sailing related things that I have learned from reading and or more importantly acquired through experience. There is a balance between knowledge and experience, but I believe that one without the other is incomplete.
How do you teach experience? There is something from the input factors of cause and effect. While riding a horse how much pressure do you input to get them to move left or right? Your knowledge has taught you what to do, but your actual experience teaches you how much force I use to give one horse verses another horse. Not all horses require the same input to get the same results. Sailing is kind of like that also.
What sails do you use? What compass heading do you steer to? How much heeling do you tolerate before reefing the main or taking in sail? As you can see there are so many variables that the all knowing Book of Sailing cannot express them all. Experience on a specific vessel is as important as local knowledge of a city. Without it you could easily be in the baddest part of town with Leroy Brown. You may have a boat load of repair parts in stores, but having varnish doesn’t mean you know how to get that glassy finish that sparkles in the sun light. A great cook doesn’t use measurements when cooking because of there experience. What is the exact measurement for a pinch or a handful? Don’t ask me, I only use the measuring cup when testing the grade of fresh water I’m making from the water maker on Dazzler.
Where am I going with all this? After 15 years of boating with Dazzler. I would say I know more about her than anyone else. I know a lot about her sailing characteristics and how she responds. That knowledge based on experience comes from a hands on feel. Knowing that right timing to make a tack or just when she needs a reef. It is hard to teach the feel that can only come from time in the saddle or rail time as I refer to in becoming a better fish catcher. I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way. A molecular biologist will spend countless hours in the lab running several thousands of test with most of the results being negative. They are not practicing being wrong. They have discovered what won’t work and hoping for that one positive result that can be repeated over and over again thus finding a cure for some cancer or communicable disease. So, making mistakes teaches us what won’t work or what not to do. Man that stove is hot. I think I burnt my hand. Right?
Which sail or sail combination do I use? Which tool do I use? Which pan do need? Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box and throw up a Hail Mary. From your experience you have narrowed down what won’t work and increased your odds of using the right combination.
With the light winds we’ve been experiencing, I can tell you that a 32 thousand pound sailboat requires some breeze to tug her heavy keel to and fro. We have found a combination that seams to work for us. During the day we are flying the spinnaker. During the early evenings we hoist the full main and Jib. During the early mornings we have kind of gotten used to bobbing around like a cork. Because no matter how you dissect, divide, or slice up 3 knots of wind, it’s still 3 knots of wind and at that point we just drop the sails and bob like a cork. Or maybe we’ll get lucky like last night and the winds favored us with about 8 knots for most of the evening. A definite nice change in our favor. We are looking forward to more nights like that. The winds yesterday and throughout the night gave us our best travel day to date with 131 nautical miles under our keel in a 24 hour period.
The sun is on the rise and here we are on passage to another land and culture in paradise. This journey should not be taken by the individuals that just bought a sailboat and decided to venture across the Big Water. Learn as much as you can about her strengths and especially her weaknesses. Spend time in the saddle learning the feelings of the force. When you do, your confidence and experience will enhance your off shore experience.
When people ask me what I think or what I do in certain situations, I try to explain that there is no magic pill that makes us suddenly empowered with experience or knowledge. You could make a small fortune if you owned the rights to those pills. The knowledge of experience comes from one place and that place is hands on. Until next time, be safe and dream on your coffee break not while driving. Cheers!
Captain Dan

4.2.18 @ 1000 Local, 1700 Zulú Day #8 Latitude: 14°57 N Longitude: 117°11 W Covered Distance Last 24 Hours: 101 NM Distance to the Marquesas: 1962 Distance from Punta de Mita, Mexico: 854 NM Weather: Sunny with 30% Cloud Cover Winds: N 11 Knots Sea State: 1’ – 3’ Barometer: 1014 Crew’s Mood: Finer than frog hair! Ever seen hair on a frog? That’s fine!
This definitely was no record setting day by any stretch but as we keep saying, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Light winds plagued us throughout the day but we were able to finally get a steady 5 knots with the spinnaker out. I guess for most of our highly stressed, fast living, landlubber friends this would have been a problem but for us, it’s just part of the journey. We try to look at the positive side. We are making way in fairly calm seas. The sun is out; it’s warm, we’re together and it’s an enjoyable sail. We are not on a time schedule so who cares if it takes a few days longer?
As evening approaches we pull down the spinnaker and throw up the Jib and the main. We eat dinner, listen to the PPJ net and I go down for a bit of shut eye before it’s my turn for watch duty. A few hours pass and there it is again…that creaking of the companionway doors. Damn! It’s the gallows man again. He’s back to taunt me. He seems to show up every night at the same time. I feel like I’m living the same dream over and over again. Is this some cruel joke? Am I playing a part in the movie, “Groundhog Day?” No, as my eyes open I realize I’m still here in heaven with the man I love and this is just a short term situation required to keep us safe. So, up I go. Time to get dressed, make my soda, grab my granola bar and get on deck. The night is calling and I must answer.
Even though the moon is almost full and its silvery beams are dancing on the water, I’m not enjoying this watch. The winds are so light the Jib starts flogging and before long it starts to back itself into the rigging. I make all the adjustments to course and to the sail that I know how to do but nothing works. This is the time I dread. I’m going to have to wake Dan up to determine what we should do. He always tells me it’s fine but I still hate to wake him. He needs his sleep too!
I keep waiting for an uptick in the wind. I wait until the last possible moment to go down and get him. The winds are less than 5 knots and I can see the Jib must come in. Down I go into the cabin. I’m not sure what is worse, being the prisoner or the gallows man himself! “Honey, you need to get up. We’ve got zero wind and the Jib is flogging. We need to bring it in.” At first he grunts a bit but soon he’s up and we’re back on deck. We bring in the Jib, adjust the main and he goes back to bed.
With the little wind we do have we are barely making 2 knots. It’s painfully slow and the main starts to flog here and there. One of my first lessons on Dazzler was that a flogging main is bad, very bad. It can damage the sail and the rigging so you need to avoid it at all costs. Tonight will be a test of my abilities and understanding of this rule. Unlike most watches where I watch the stars, play games on my iPad or write in my journal, tonight I will spend almost every second adjusting course to keep the wind, however little there is, in the sail.
The wind seems to keep changing direction and speed. Just when I think I’ve got it under control and I sit down for a minute, it changes and that familiar sound of a flogging sail starts to ring out. It’s stressful. I want it to be over and soon. If I knew fuel was unlimited I would just fire up the engine but alas that is not the case so I must ride this out.
0400 finally arrives and I hear Dan starting to move about in the cabin. “Thank you Lord. I made it!” I say aloud. After four hours my body finally starts to relax, my breathing returns to normal and I want nothing more than to go back to bed. Dan decides we have to run the engine for a while so his watch is the easy one. Oh well, my bunk is calling. It’s no longer my monkey or my circus.
Fast forward several hours. “What is that smell? Oh wait. I think I recognize it. Could it be? Oh yes, it’s bacon!” Is there anyone on earth that doesn’t love to wake up to the smell of bacon…you know, the fifth major food group? Just as my nose is being tickled by that Ode to Bacon scent I feel Dan at the foot of the bunk telling me I should get up because he’s making breakfast. Well heck yeah I’m getting up. I almost tackle him on my way out of then berth to get to the galley for a piece of that tantalizing treat. Yummy!
Now mama always told us kids never to air our dirty laundry in public so the picture you see above is “clean” laundry. Yep, just like in real life we have chores aboard Dazzler and laundry is one of them. If you’re used to your Whirlpool, 28 speed, it washes, dries and folds before kissing you goodnight machine then you’d be very disappointed by our archaic way of a accomplishing this task. But, you know what? It works! Dan uses our trusty agitator on a stick then runs the clothes through our rail mounted ringer and I hang them on the line to dry. It’s a team sport and we laugh and joke throughout it all.
Breakfast done, clothes washed and hanging to dry and it’s time to chill in the cockpit and watch the world go by. We’re flying the spinnaker again this morning and while there isn’t much wind we are still managing to eek out 5 knots for now so we are happy sailors.
Until next time,
Jilly