When does one trip end and another one begin when you're more or less sailing where the wind and whim may take you. Let's call this one the Atlantic loop. Beginning in St Thomas, VI hence to Bremuda, across the Atlantic to the Azores, Europe, Mediterranean, Africa and returning through Madeira and the Canaries to the Caribbean. A meandering misshapen 8000 nautical mile loop by my close enough reckoning.
Anchored in Charlotte Amalie after picking up a new mainsail from North sails Antigua, we were busily receiving and returning parts and pieces from the mailstop in Redhook, including a new Radar from B and G. The old 3G model had the best I can tell, a 100 percent failure rate among the several poor sailors I knew who purchased one. (I had two fail in a year, does that make a 200 percent failure rate?) The factory magnanimously responded with a half hearted gesture of half off for a new model. My third replacement unit in a little over two years!
The new main required a totally reconfigured reefing system which I happily provided by ripping out the innards of the single line system from the Seldon mainsail boom and replacing it with a two line system, one more line but less total line, sheaves and most important...friction.
Several other projects undertaken and finished including new AIS, new exhaust elbow, etc., tick tick tick and the list is finally done. The truth today.
I have long been a member of the Salty Dawg sailing association and decided to join the spring rally contingent headed to Bermuda as the first part of the journey. The organization is great for novices and old hands alike and a great way to meet new sailors and drink old rum.
The weather coordination as always was provided by Chris Parker, Marine Weather Center May 10th was set as the notional departure date and the forecast was near perfect. 4 days of broad reaching with seldom more than 15 knots wind across the deck. Parallax with screecher set will take all that you can give her and 4, 200 plus nautical mile days later, dropped the Hook in St Georges Harbor. The sailing Pom Willoughby or willow as we call her got her sea legs and Robbyn and I stood watch, very occasionally trimmed sails or adjusted course. Not much for a 4 day entry in the log but that's about it. Did I say magic carpet ride?
Sailing notes: My screecher for sailing novices is a large head sail much larger than the working jib. I have the screecher more or less permanently hoisted off Parallax’s rather long bowsprit to keep it in clearer air. It is furled on a continuous line reef system and wears a performance degrading sunshield. The nomenclature for what is a code vs screecher vs a gennaker is confusing, I think even a bit confusing to sailmakers. Since it is constructed of light dacron not nylon and and somewhat less girth than the stretchy nylon code sails I think the generally accepted term for such a sail employed on a catamaran is a screecher. It will draw as high as 55 degrees apparent in light air and I fly it down to say 140 degrees apparent, the sail is not especially effective at such deep angles but my asymmetrical spinnaker (asym or spin) is cut to fly the lower angles and we hoist that from a sleeve when we need to sail lower angles and the wind is less than 15 across the deck. I have only one spin halyard so the screecher must be dropped to free the halyard for the spin. Generally, the spin flys from the windward ama clear of the mainsail shadow. The code usually lies lashed to the trampoline when doused, but still attached to the bowsprit. Relatively simple to hoist or douse the spin which lives in a sleeve, free up the halyard and hoist the screecher again. That's the way we roll. These are both lighter air sails, 15 knots apparent so it's usually not a problem working on the foredeck or trampoline to hoist and douse these two sails. For the Bermuda trip the screecher was up 90 percent of the time while we scooted along at 10 to sometimes 13-14 knots. We actually slowed down the last 12 hours or so for a daylight landfall or we would have made the 840 mile trip in less than 4 days.
As always pics can be found on the Where in the World is Parallax page
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