Dry For Now (as least I am!)
Day 16
Stats - 9/15/2023
Time: 2300
Trip Miles: 1,992 at 1200
Weather: Dark clouds, raining on and off. Lot’s of mini squalls.. Barometer dropping
Wind: 25 - 31 Knots blowing from the W
Sea State: Four to eight foot rolling swells at 7 second intervals - this has held pretty steady
How Far North: We will cross Latitude 55 shortly (the southern most part of Alaska)
Propulsion: Sailing 7 to 8 knots NNE (we want to go N but wind blowing us in slightly wrong direction
Sea Temperature: 52 - was 57 yesterday
Today was all about making final preparations for tomorrow when the gale will hit us around midnight. MŌLI is in excellent condition and Randall has worked tirelessly to get us ready. Tomorrow I will do a clean up and prepare storm meals (easy-to-eat foods). I will bake some cake, take 1/2 of a Dramamine and we will decide whether to use a drogue or a sea anchor https://www.practical-sailor.com/sails-rigging-deckgear/sea-anchors-drogues to keep us from being blown in the completely wrong direction. BTW, Shana Tova and happy 5784!!
Here is the latest weather report. As you can see, we are making tremendous progress and are only about 200 miles from Kodiak Island and perhaps 450 mikes from Homer. Easy, right? Not actually as the weather for the next several days will push us east rather than to the NW where we need to go. This will cause us to drift further away from Homer with no idea of how many more days it will take to wait for the proper weather so we can head to Homer. A week to 10 days if we are lucky.
For fun, look to our left and you can see the gale approaching as it rides up the Aleutian Islands towards us. Randall’s objective is for us to get as far north as possible before the gale hits us. If we do this, we can likely avoid the center of the gale which would be blowing 50+. The gale gets weaker in the north so with any luck, we will experience wind in the 40+ range. The current forecast is for the gale to blow over us in 12 to 18 hours.
Just a quick view of us screaming along in these incredible conditions. We are sailing fast and hard. Not the relaxing trip Randall had hoped for.
Randall’s watch was over, but he still wanted to rig the jib sheets in a special way to minimize having to go out to the foredeck during the gale. He rigs two sheets to the jib on the starboard side, one forward of the other. In this way, once the big blow hits, you just have to switch sheets rather than have to get out there and futz with all kinds of rigging. Very forward thinking and much safer tomorrow. But Randall got soaked while making this adjustment. Sorry!