The Way of Things

Day 2 : St Helena to Ascension Island

Saturday, March 5th 2022

Day 2 was another typical passage day. Spectacular sunrise, consistent SE trade winds at 12-15 knots, 25-28 degrees air temperature. No ships or any other traffic. And our regular 4 on, 4 off watches.

That’s just the way of things here in the South Atlantic.

It’s reputed to be the fairest and most benign of all Oceans for passage making, and we can see why.

The most exciting thing that happened to us yesterday was the latch on a cupboard door exploding. The cupboard in question is what we call our “shed” – it’s where the tools, manuals, watermaker and refrigerator compressor are kept, and has a large door into the aft heads.

We also store offcuts of wood in there and a big piece (the one we reserve for “percussive maintenance”) had dislodged itself when the boat rolled and hit the shed door with sufficient force to break the latch!

To be honest, I was glad of the diversion. Super glue and epoxy putty was all that was required to fix it, but during the fix, the spring inside the latch did what springs were born to do, and “sprung”, meaning all the component parts separated, somewhat violently!

In the absence of internet, both Jen and I took turns in trying to work out how it was meant to go back together. As is the way of these things, 90% of it went back together easily, but there was just once piece left over, and we couldn’t figure out where it went.

Jen has a lot more patience than me with those types of things, so inevitably she solved it, but it had swallowed up a couple of hours, which was nice!

We also spent a fair amount of time discussing our sail plan strategy. Once again our destination is directly down wind of us, and so there are multiple options for how to get there – sail direct and slow, or sail the angles somewhat faster, but much further. And then within that, a white sail versus spinnaker decision to be made.

We’re not in any particular rush, so in theory we could just let it play out naturally and take the path of least resistance (which in our case would be two long legs sailed at 135 degrees AWA, white sail only, jib and jigger, with one gybe in the middle).

But this is me we’re talking about. And so, as is the way of things, I can’t relax fully if the boat is sailing inefficiently, or in the “wrong” direction, and if there is a better option available to us.

Jen has long since come to terms with this aspect of my personality, and humours me and the inevitable discussions where I try and calculate the plusses and minuses of each approach, including some fancy geometry looking at sailing angles, VMG, SOG, AWA, TWD and all manner of other acronyms, before ultimately realising that it’s futile to try and work things out too precisely given the number of variables, and end up just going with my gut.

It’s just the way of things.

As of course, is the inevitability that the choice that I end making will require precisely the most amount of effort to set up of all the available options. So, after much hemming and hawing, we decided to launch Big Pink.

We’ve flown the spinnaker more in the 6 weeks since we left Cape Town than in the entire 18,000 miles prior to that, so we’re becoming a fairly slick operation these days. Once launched, we adjusted our course and Steely picked up her skirts and started flying, immediately gaining 1.5 knots of boat speed and a favourable 10 degree course correction.

By that point, it was time for lunch. We’d been holding off in the hope that we’d catch a nice Yellow Fin Tuna in time for some sashimi, but it wasn’t to be.

But, as is the way with these things, no sooner had Jen started preparing a ham salad wrap, when FFZZZZZZZTTTTTTT went the fishing line.

“FISH ON” I yelled, and Jen came up to join me as I landed what turned out to be a disappointingly small Mahe Mahe. We’d thrown a couple that size back en route to St Helena, but decided to keep this one as we couldn’t face Coco’s disappointment. She’s now completely tuned into the sound of the fishing reel, and looks on expectantly as we bring the fish in. So cute!

He was a feisty bugger, and his death throes were distressingly energetic but eventually he was, somewhat messily, dispatched.

I tied him up by the tail as we usually do, so that Jen could hang him from the solar arch while she bled him. “Are you sure that knot’s tight enough?”, she asked me.

“Yes, Yes, of course”, I replied, a little dismissively, if I’m being entirely honest.

But yes, as is the way of these things, as a direct result of Jen asking and me dismissing it, the tail inevitably slipped through the knot, and we lost it overboard.

I don’t what made me feel more chastened – my wife’s heroic restraint in not telling me she “told me so”, or my guilt at this poor fish dying in vain.

I spent my afternoon watch struggling to stay awake, and looked forward to 5pm when Jen would relieve me and I could catch up on some sleep. But as is the way of these things, inevitably I felt wide awake as soon as I lay down to sleep.

No matter, it was soon time for our “Captains hour” sunset drink.

Many boats have a strict “No alcohol” policy on passage, and in truth, that’s the most sensible approach. After all, you never know when something significant is going to break, or a big squall is going to blow through, or heaven forbid you strike something below the waterline.

And as is the way of these things, if any of those were going to happen, it would be at the worst possible time. Which if you were drinking, would be precisely after the third beer.

We’ve been influenced in our own policy on Steel Sapphire by none other than John Kretschmer, a legendary sailor and author, with whom we sailed in the Caribbean a few years ago.

He has a lovely tradition of having one drink at sunset, when all crew must gather together to discuss the day and enjoy each other’s company, and it is something that resonated for us.

We figure one drink would not impair us if a problem arose (and we’re strict with it), and it’s the one time of day that is sacrosanct – no reading, working on jobs, or doing our own thing. Just taking 60 minutes to chat and watch the sun set.

It’s just the way of things (at least on Steely).

After that, we went about our usual dinner and night watch routine, and Day 2 came to its end - another perfectly ordinary day on the ocean, with everything as it should be and nothing out of order.

Day 2 Statistics:
Time on passage so far: 1 day, 16 hours
Distance Covered: 245 nautical miles
Distance in last 24 ours: 141 nm
Average Speed: 6.1 knots
Distance to Go: 484 nautical miles

Number of adjustments to sails or autopilot since Big Pink was launched : 0 (this is NOT Pete’s way of things!!!)