Day 29 - June 20, 2019 - Click image for larger view
Breakfast! The wind steadily increased along with my appetite. It is very difficult and dangerous to cook on the stove in high seas. The stove and microwave are gimballed but I'm not. Trying to remain upright with damp feet on a gloss varnished sole (interior floor) can be challenging. Pushing my limits to stay upright I enjoyed a nice omelette with grits but this was my last stovetop meal for a while.
The wind built up nicely overnight and by the end of this day I was wishing it would stop growing. Out here alone in the wild blue you just can't hit the pause button, it is what it is and you'd better be prepared for anything in an instant. I had become somewhat complacent at this point having such mild weather since leaving Bermuda a full week ago but as the wind picked up I couldn't help but wonder how far she would go. As I remember a fairly strong low pressure system (counter rotating wind) was approaching from the SW. I knew they could get really nasty up in this neck of the woods and I sure couldn't outrun them so I'd better start preparing for the worst while hoping luck would be on my side.
Before dark I had the mainsail down to its 2nd reef point, as low as she'd go on Southern Light. The big genoa headsail was rolled all the way in and the Staysail was up full. The staysail, the small one just in front of the mast, I had custom made, was extra heavy duty with reef points for storms which I hadn't needed to use. Reef points on this staysail are small ropes running through heavily reinforced grommets made to be tied around the club boom at the base of the sail. When one knows a storm is approaching it's still tough to determine when to reef (reduce size) any sail, being solo it should be done much earlier. There comes a time when it is very dangerous and/or impossible to put them in. It's better to be caught with your pants down than blown off!
As night approached I was hoping for the best. Until tomorrow.
From my PredictWind post at the time -
"High Seas Sailing North Atlantic!
Thu Jun 20 2019 11:55:00 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
Loving the cool 76F breeze. Winds in the 20'ish range building nice size breaking seas. On a very broad reach yet none have broken inside the cockpit. Today marks the first week out of Bermuda, officially 19:15 but that's another time zone. Can't cook on the gimballed stove now, its swinging wildly but I have plenty of snacks to grab. All is well!
Sargassum weed was everywhere but the wave action tore the large clumps into smaller pieces. Hovering around hull speed also kept any pieces from clinging to the prop and rudder very long.
The Sargasso Sea sometimes forms floating islands that can trap a sailboat. A few times Southern Light would get stuck requiring engine power to reverse out and sail around. One was as far as the eye could see and took Southern Light a few miles to finally get around. I imagined early sailing ships, without engines, trying to get out of the thick stuff with long poles, waiting for a wind shift or storm to break the growth apart. It could be maddening!
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