Day 14 – The Crew – Part 3 – The Takeover.
Welcome all landlubbers to another interruption in your normal Sukama broadcast, brought to you by, The Crew!
In today’s edition we have changing plans and The Crew takeover. For those readings Sue’s normal reports some of this you will already know but maybe with a different perspective!
We have again turned to a more Northerly, or more accurately, a North Easterly route. No…. Our compass hasn’t broken, nor have we forgotten our magnetic deviations(!), nor, despite our best efforts, have we run out of rum…..yet.. A cheeky little monkey of a weather system known as the Azores high has grown, shifted and fundamentally made a complete nuisance of itself; as cheeky little monkeys often do! To head directly to the Canarias from here would now put us straight through the middle of it and require possibly up to a weeks worth or motoring, or we dive round the Southern side and face a very slow tack into wind back up. So with not enough of the go go juice left to head through the middle (plus it would be boring), with your best bear hunt voice now…. ‘we cant go under it!…., we cant go through it!…., we have to go over it!
So new waypoint set to head over the top. But…. This now brings us very close to the Azores, within just a couple of days sailing in fact, due to how far North we have to travel to clear over the top of the high. A quick boat meeting later, check on flight options from shoreside contacts, and we have a new plan! Scrap all waypoints, plot a new course, loosen the sheets (sailors jargon for the ropes connected to the sails) and onwards to the Azores! This works well for a number of reasons. Both of us as The Crew are becoming a little time pressured with the crossing being much slower than would normally be expected due to the very light (or rather no) winds early in the passage. The Azores therefore offers a convenient hopping off point where, with the right weather window, it is an easy run for Malcolm and Sue to complete going to the Canarias. Secondly, it provides an opportunity to resupply on key items. As we are down to the last 2 cartons of milk we are at risk of running out of a key ingredient for Sue’s most vital of all requirements… Tea. Without which then as you have seen before, normal function becomes a near impossible ask!
Today you find us scooting along at 7 to 9 knots through the water (not quite the same as speed over the ground due to that pesky boatie nature of being pushed about by currents and wind) on a North Easterly course well and truly about as far from any significant land mass as you could possibly get in the Atlantic. Practically every direction is 1000 nautical miles, or more, of the vast open wet stuff before you run the risk of hitting anything solid. Given that until the evening we also had not seen another ship of any kind for at east 48 hours it seems safe to say we are currently, extremely unlikely to hit anything!… We presume it is therefore sheer coincidence then that Malcolm and Sue chose this particular area of great nothingness to ‘officially’ hand over the running of the boat to us, The Crew! Some might suggest it was a carefully considered location! The bonus for Paul in particular, given it was his day to cook, was that Sue took ownership of chef duties as part of the role changes.
So for the last 48 hours Sukama has fundamentally been ours to run; the guiding principals being, don’t fall in, keep on course, don’t drain the batteries, don’t break anything and don’t let the outside water end up on the inside… Technically we weren’t given that last instruction but we consider it a good starting point as a measure of success!
Just think, it is now down to just the two of us to worry about all that highly energetic button pressing adjusting course a degree or two. Gazing up at the sails while pretending we have half a clue what we’re doing before setting the sails once, maybe twice in a day if you’re really feeling pushed! Oh and running the generator, that all important task keeping the much watched batteries above 60% at all times! We’re positively rushed off our feet, I think Paul only managed about 7 hours on his tablet during the day and that was only stopped due to the battery running out. Anthony possibly slightly less on his laptop due to a mid afternoon nap to catchup after the 12-4AM watch. So what was it like, what antics did we get up to…. Maybe more interestingly how did Malcolm and Sue cope with taking more of a back seat!
Well, as for headlines, we hit our waypoint with about 2nm offset after travelling around 340nm, achieved the highest boat speeds of the trip so far at 10 knots, got through 24knot gusts, didn’t break anything, oh and as a bonus no-one fell in plus no extra water inside the boat! A good run of events so far!
Actual sailing with sails!
Yesterday was an easy sailing day. We spent time trying to get the Genoa set and tell tales flying correctly. The tell-tales are little bits of string attached to either side of the leading edge of the sail which indicate the airflow around the sail and if it is working correctly. We struggled with setting the lower Genoa tell-tales in gusting winds while also sitting in what Charlie well described as “washing machine” like sea conditions. Eventually, with Sue’s advice, we moved the car forwards to correct the sails trailing edge and while still not flying correctly by the book seemed as happy as it could be. With the wind showing signs of veering further South and the weather file suggesting it could move South-South West we decided to rig the pole for the evening. Dancing around on the deck was equally uneventful and went to plan, we even managed to get all the various combintaions of 5 lines threaded through and round the right way first time! The task made more complicated than normal as we are also running a preventer line on the mainsail. Overnight the wind veered as suspected but gained additional strength resulting in Anthony putting 2 reefs in the headsail and an additional reef in the main during watch. All run of the mill routine….
This morning we again let the sails out further to take advantage of the conditions and Anthony spent time tuning the balance between the Genoa and Mainsail. The boat was out of balance coming out of last nights watch pattern with George, the autopilot, working overly hard to keep on course. Having made some small adjustments to the mainsail tension then the rudder corrections halved allowing George to operate far less, create less drag and ultimately Sukama can go faster despite the mainsail working slightly less efficiently. The day passed without event but keeping a careful watch on wind speed and direction a couple of times as it veered or increased slightly, starting to top 20knots which is about where we were looking to have reefs get involved on this point of sail.
In an attempt to be at least half responsible, for some of the time, we checked the weather projection for the evening and into Day 15. Having compared this to Charlies latest forecast it all looked fairly uneventful with the projection showing slightly decreasing wind speeds by midday however should one of the fronts move slightly faster than planned it would be possible to see an increase during the morning. So with a rare view on being conservative we started the evening with 1 reef in the headsail but by 10PM, 2 hours into Pauls watch, we had put 2 reefs in the headsail with the wind veering to more on the beam and gusting to 20knots.
Both Malcolm and Sue have been a great, allowing us to largely get on with it and figure out what works best which is far more useful than just tightening a line or making a course change because you were asked to. To be able to play with sails, see the effect and understand why is ultimately far far more beneficial. But what of the approach to being passengers!?
To those who know Sue will clearly recognise that sitting back, taking it easy, and not getting involved are all things that come naturally. Hmmm….. I think not!! With the crew takeover Sue appears to have developed a new persona! Sitting bolt upright and looking around at any slight noise, vibration, movement of the boat (which with our current confused sea state is most of the time!), with a concerned frown or sometimes asking Malcolm not so quietly, “can you take a look at ….”. This was most ably demonstrated while Anthony and Paul were in the cockpit then Sue’s head pops up from down below, “What have you got that’s banging, can you take a look?”. With slight puzzlement we looked at each other and say well everything is tight so we cant see what it could be but nonetheless we go around checking, and double checking, all the lines, maybe we left one of the mast lines loose and its slapping on the side, no, nothing wrong there. Having found nothing and being unable to hear anything up top we ask “are you sure it’s up here?”. Malcolm then takes a look around down below….. source found! What was it I hear you ask? Well it was the kitchen knife block rocking in its cupboard with the movement of the waves, probably as it always has since the day it was fitted! We then, with rather large grins, asked if the chef could take a look and make sure all of her equipment was correctly stowed as there was a really annoying banging noise coming from down below…. Jumping to conclusions and blaming The Crew, whatever next! We almost took it personally!
Malcolm has actually gone to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time and not just cat napping in the cockpit. Other than the odd sneaky glance at the battery state of charge which becomes more frequent as they get below 70% then he has been very relaxed; appearances can be deceiving! Power management on any yacht is a continual function, especially because you’re reliant on it for your instruments and the all important button pressing. No power, no George and that would be a whole different ball game! So with batteries at about 65% we ran the genertor for a couple of hours. Batteries back to 100%, water tanks topped back up having also run the water maker at the same time and hot water done too. All set for the night.
In the future however I think we need to ensure Sukama is suitably equipped with a copy of Douglas Adams’ 
well known creation and issue a book entitled with large friendly letters on the front cover saying “DONT PANIC” which can be issued at times of discomfort!
This evenings post-dinner entertainment was brought by Paul demonstrating the autopilot link to the helm, something he had used on the last crossing, but Anthony had not, with the new plotter system having been recently installed. This allows you to control George, the autopilot, from the comfort of the nav station and chart plotter table down below. Remember all that over exertion we had, going all the way up 5 steps, one step across the deck, and with the dexterity of a baby elephant on roller skates, trying to hold on, balance and press the +/-1 button without pressing the +/-10 button; get that last bit wrong then lots of beeps follow as you frantically try to correct the error before anyone else notices! Well….. game changer ….. Paul’s demonstration showed a way to control the helm without all that over exertion. Slimply stay sat down below and use the plotter touch screen.. oh wait, more index finger action! Ah well, cant fix everything I suppose. All was going well until came the time to disable the link to the plotter….. Paul confidently pressed the button, Anthony checked the wheel was still moving from the comfort of down below and all looked well. Anthony did make a comment that “it would be hard to tell if the wheel was under autopilot control or just weather helm” but having decided all looked ok then everything must be working correctly…. surely… now where have we heard that before!?
Well, 10 or so minutes later the wind was starting to swing around to the front of the boat…. that’s odd…. The wind had already swung round 60 degrees to the South West in the early evening, suggesting the weather was running a few hours early to forecast, but to swing from the beam (boatie word for side) to the bow (boatie word for the pointy end) was not in the forecast at all. Figuring something was not right Anthony stepped behind the wheel to do it the old fashioned way and actually steer the boat. We had turned almost completely into wind by this point so rudder over to Port (boatie word for left) and Sukama slowly came back around. Sukama doesn’t like to steer close to the wind at very slow speeds, it’s not her thing, I mean she does weigh 20 tones so at a couple of knots it is asking a lot! So we managed to avoid tacking, turn to port, and get back on course but did somehow end up heading into wind in the first place, which was absolutely not part of plan! So why….? Well remember that confident button press to disable the plotter autopilot control… Turns out what that actually did was just disable the autopilot completely. Sukama had managed to maintain a reasonable course for some time as we had improved balance and reduced the need for the autopilot input earlier the day but eventually the wave motion will push her off course. The fact she has a “weather helm” means she will then turn into wind and stop if left to her own devices. With a bit of back and forth and close monitoring of the autopilot at the helm we eventually figured out the method to disable helm control from the plotter without turning it off completely. An entirely unplanned bit of excitement for the evening that got everyone’s careful attention!
Overnight Sue had elected to sleep in the main cabin. Now Sue will tell you this is due to Malcolm having taken over the bed sleeping diagonally in their cabin and thus not enough space to fit. It couldn’t possibly be due to us The Crew having 2 out of the 3 night shifts and Sue’s new found persona could it…? I’ll let you decide! In any event Anthony came to take over watch from Malcolm at 4AM boat time – It’s day time basically as we are still operating on Caribbean time zones – during the general chat of handing over watch, sail settings, course, any issues, any ships… daft question, of course not, then Sue slept peacefully on the saloon sofa…. Until, there was mention of ‘would you like some Tea”. Well at this point Sue woke with a sudden start and face of panic, we had clearly uttered the trigger word and was then surprised to have people around! I mean what else do you expect to find in the middle of the boat!
So what other antics have happened aboard the last few days… Well having caught Sue crying with laughter while reading The Crew’s last post and an amused smirk from Malcolm they are both trying very hard to not provide an ongoing source of amusement while doing their very best impression of being responsible yet somewhat unique individuals! Even refusing to relay stories of misadventure when they have been able to keep it away from the watchful eyes of The Crew in case it should feature in our report! What cheek! I mean Sue even managed breakfast with just a single chopping board! We will just have to redouble our efforts in capturing those moments of amusement for the next one.
Your normal broadcast service shall resume tomorrow. Until next time.
The Crew
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Team members: Malcolm, Sue, Anthony, Paul, George the autopilot, Charlie our weather router
Pete and T-J are in the UK receiving and sharing our updates via the wonders of satellite.
Photos and videos from previous crossings by Sukama.
Previous adventure updates
Odyssey 2 start – day 3: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-start/
Odyssey 2 day 4 – 5: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-days-4-5/
Odyssey 2 day 6: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-day-6/
Odyssey 2 day 7 – 9: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-day-7-9/
Odyssey 2 day 10: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-day-10/
Odyssey 2 day 11 – 13: https://blackwells.biz/atlantic-odyssey-2-days-11-13/