Day 6, part 2

Grateful that the gale was over, I began tacking towards Cape Pallisier. The wind was from the south west, and the coast also runs along that general direction... so the wind is coming from exactly the wrong direction. The unfavorable wind direction meant I couldn't simply sail along parallel with the coast, but I had to zig zag back and forth, head south some, then head west. Non sailors are often surprised to hear this is possible! Indeed it is and utilizes the same physics that enables birds and airplanes to fly! But I won't describe that here, just that I have to zig zag.

I had overall, a lot more west to cover than south, so I started heading west. It was still very windy when I started this, but it was a level of wind I could sail into.

At some point late that night, I happened to be looking at progress on my phone screen, and I noticed that our path had curved and we were now heading generally south-west! with this wind we could just sail straight there! how fortuitous! but I then I also noticed that it was getting a bit windier too. Quite a bit windier. Maybe it was even windy enough to drop the jib and heave to again... The windows where going underwater quite often.

But I was warm in bed and maybe it'll just watch it a little while and see if it eases... but Tangaroa had another point to make. A wave crashed into the boat, going right across the deck and smashing the dinghy out of it's lashings! I had spent 6 weeks building that dinghy so this got me out of bed very quickly. I saw through the dome that it was still on deck, but in the center instead of the side. (I had in tied on to the side, initially, so I could see forward better from the dome)

I got my rain gear and safety harness on, from the cockpit, lowered the jib. I had a downhaul set up, so I could just pull a line and the sail came down. Also, I could cleat that line and the sail would stay down, very useful. Once the dinghy was lashed again, I went back inside. I guess the gale wasn't quite over yet. Still, I had an abiding awareness that Tangaroa had gone easy on me and it can get a lot worse than this. At this point I realize that I'd made a mistake by coming closer to the coast. What if the wind changed around to the south east? and grew stronger so it was hard to sail into it? Clearly I should turn the boat around.

I needed to raise the jib again to get enough speed to tack, but I got it up, tacked, and then when I took it down, I forgot to cleat the sheets. In regular sailing you don't really need to do things like that, but because conditions where so extreme, things behaved differently. The sail flogged so hard it pulled the sheets through, and wrapped them around each other, all this within a few seconds. All I saw was a darks shape that appeared to be attached to the sail coming down. As I had a downhaul set up, it was easy to get the sail down, and then I spent ten minutes on deck untangling them.

(don't leave untangling a rope until 'later'! the next time you need it might be an emergency!)

The boat now safely hove to, I went back to bed. Also, I realized how important the heavy jib was. If I did get trapped with a strong wind blowing me towards the shore, that is the sail that would save me.

At some point I woke up, hearing a noise, went on deck to check. The others were there, they had a new one on board, and where questioning him. How did you get on board? I climbed aboard my self, like the others did? Oh yes that would explain some things. I noticed that the wind had eased, and my friend the heavy jib was banging into the rail like it was a dog that wanted to go for a walk. I should probably raise that. Will the others mind if I do that without asking them? Yes I think they'll agree it is the right thing to do.

This wasn't the only time that I "forgot" I was sailing alone. Normally it happens when being waken from sleep with some urgency. Usually the visitors are helpful in some way. This sort of experience is fairly common with solo sailors although not everyone writes about it.

I'm not sure exactly when this happened, but I recorded it in my log book at 0335, sunday. So maybe it was during technically day 7.