It was a very windy night, no the weather programs did not show this in advance. But our anchor held firm, we were up at 6 AM, which means we missed the sunrise. Of course the wind had calmed down a bunch by morning.
Well, about an hour or so out of Puerto Don Juan, we put out the spinnaker. Good, it went up ok, and was pulling the boat at about double the speed we had been doing before in about 10 knots of wind (boat speed approaching 4 knots). Bad, then we tacked (POORLY!) and tangled the spinnaker around both the jib and staysail, we then spent the next hour and a half getting the spinnaker down. What a mess. Finally we were headed in the right direction with the wind directly from behind us. Which means that unless we sailed wing on wing or had the spinnaker out we were not going very fast (1-2 knots). We looked at the charts and distance to Bahia San Francisquito and elected to motor there and hopefully arrive before dark to anchor for the night.
So, a bit more detail about the spinnaker incident. We have (successfully) flown it before. It takes some preparation to get it hoisted. We have installed preventers (lines from the cockpit to the bow then back to the boom to hold it out to prevent an accidental jibe). The port side preventer is also used as the tack line for the spinnaker (the bottom attachment point for the spinnaker. The top of the spinnaker goes up to the top of the mast, and has it’s own halyard with a winch on the boom to haul it up. At the remaining corner of the spinnaker is the Clew which is where the sheets for spinnaker attach and are then run back to the cockpit and we use the winches that are normally used for the jib (the forward most sail). So, the spinnaker is stored in a bag in the forward cabin, and comes up through the hatch over the bed. The spinnaker has a huge sock over it that is fixed at the top, and has a rope installed for pulling the sock up when the spinnaker is being used, and the other end of the loop is used to pull the sock down when you are putting the spinnaker away. So, in our efforts to tack this loop got tangled around the spinnaker and the gib and the staysail all about 50 feet above the deck with enough wind to really move the sail around. Thankfully when this happened, we were not near any shore or islands or rocks. As I said all told it took us well over an hour to sort it out. We had the sail wrapped around the loop for hauling the sock, and the staysail and the jib about a dozen times. What a mess! Renee’ made the comment later, that it is fun sailing with me and thankfully you (meaning me) don’t panic. Yes, this would have been an appropriate time to consider panic as an option. We considered going back to Puerto Don Juan to sort it out, and we considered tying it up and just coming ahead to Bahia San Francisquito to sort it out when we anchored, and as it is, we will put it up to dry it out in Santa Rosalia sometime over the weekend.
As it worked out, we dropped anchor at about 4:45, just after the sunset, so there was still light to see what we were doing. It is a pretty jolly anchorage, but the hook is set and we are in for the night. Oh and the autopilot/chartplotter did not work at all well today, and so most of the sailing was with the auto pilot in semi auto with frequent adjustments.
Tomorrow is another long day, we have to go about 70 miles to get to Santa Rosalia. Good it is a harbor we have been to before, Bad it will be a long day. We plan to get up at about 4:30 and get underway at about 5 am.
I have added a link to the menu on the right side of the page to our track.
No pictures today.