Moonshadow’s Day 6 Passage Report

1900 zulu, April 5, 2016
10 deg. 30.3 minutes North
119 deg. 04.1 minutes West
Wind 20 knots at 035 mag. (NE)
Sea conditions 8' north swell with 2-3' wind waves
Sky overcast, we had light rain last night
1900 zulu 24 hour distance covered: 186 nautical miles
Total distance from La Cruz: 1060 nautical miles
Distance remaining: 1694 nautical miles

We are contemplating adding a bruise count to the stats above. We mentioned the rolling in an earlier post, but man, we are rolling. John remembers rolling on his previous Marquesas passage back in 1971, but that was on a big tug boat with no sails to steady things. We never thought we would experience this much rolling on a big sailboat. And these are sneaky bastard rolls. Things settle down and you forget about the rolling then wham: a series of 6-8 rolls each further than the last until we're rolling from rail to rail. You look at the waves which are essentially from the stern and can see no reason for all this rolling. While pondering this your body is being thrown across the boat, usually into something hard, like a corner of the interior cabinetry. Ouch! Before you can pick yourself up off of the deck that glass of water you just set down lands in your lap. Then you put your hand right into a pile of chips that followed basically the same trajectory as you and the drink.

Speaking of stats, we are now further west than at any time in our four years cruising Moonshadow. Then tomorrow, we'll be further south, our previous low point being about 9 degrees North latitude in Panama's Las Perlas Islands. By then, we'll also have eclipsed 18,000 miles traveled.

Since yesterday afternoon we have been skirting along the NorthWest edge of an area of squalls thunderstorms and rain. As we are just outside of the area, so all we have seen is solid overcast with rain overnight. The wind has increased as have the seas so we're moving along nicely through a combination of sailing faster and a bit of surfing. Glad to see our 24 hour distance total over 180 miles again. All this under jib alone. We've been happy not to carry our mainsail because this rolling is very hard on both the sail and the boom, blocks and sheets. With the severe rolling the mainsail inverts from concave to convex with a snap that has an ear splitting noise and the potential to break the battens, pull out D-rings and break stitching. We have likewise opted not to carry our spinnaker in the violent rolling because it is lighter and considerably more susceptible to damage than the mainsail, plus it can easily be wrapped around the headstay in such rolling conditions.

Forgive the repetition, but it has to be said: We love getting your emails!

That's all for now. All is well aboard Moonshadow!

Cheers,

John and Deb Rogers
SV Moonshadow
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