Wind SW 20-25 knots, Course ESE

It’s been three days since we sent our last communications by email. We did do an update on the phone. I hope you got that communication and that our position is still moving across the chart on the website. Our position should be slowly moving east. A lot has sure happened for us in the last three days. We had calms, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, a middle of the night deluge of rain which I didn’t try to catch, and our first southern ocean storm. First, I rolled away the genoa and put up the staysail. Then I double-reefed the main, dropped it and ran with the wind under foresail and staysail. The wind and waves came from the west and when the sun came out, it was truly magnificent and fearsome. There were streaks of foam and big patches of green in the blue sea where the waves had broken. I sat outside fully geared up and watched the sun shining through the tops of the waves as they actually curled over to make green tubes. The schooner rode the waves well at seven knots as I watched the top seam in the foresail tear all the way across. I thought, I’ll get that sail down right away, get it inside and repair it. Easier said than done. That was two days ago and now the weather has slowly lightened up and we are coasting along under roller-furling genoa and double-reefed mainsail. I already mentioned that the foresail has been up since May 30th and was in the process of holding the record for the longest time that a sail has been up non-stop since sails were invented. Imagine that, almost six months. Our hats are off to Doyle Sails and Contender sail cloth. The sail was five years old and has already ridden out quite some storms and calms. Of course if anybody knows of an example of a sail that has stayed up longer, please let us know. Wish I could tell you more, but I have to keep it short for now. Soanya’s View: When the sails are up, they help steady the boat, but with only the foresail and staysail up, high winds (maybe 40 knots) and big waves made for a theme park ride that we couldn’t get off. Reid went out yesterday to take in the scene. He was dressed in all his foul weather gear and I watched him through the main hatch slide sit in the cockpit and get splashed by big breaking waves over and over. Most of the time, the schooner just rises up with each wave and goes down in their troughs without the waves breaking, but sometimes a wave comes at just the right angle to break right over the boat and it’ll come right over the pilothouse roof. For a moment all you see is water sluicing off the windows and then it drains away. Reid got one or two on those while sitting out there, but he didn’t mind. It was exhilarating to see a wall of water heading towards to you and not knowing if it will pass quietly away or make a splash. I, myself, did not venture out for that experience. I liked being warm and dry. Then when the foresail tore, it had to be taken down and then the boat really rolled. Just to take a few steps required some strength to hold on as we lurched one way and then the other. Preparing a meal was quite the circus act. As for sleeping while your body is being thrown around, it wasn’t easy. Reid set up a divider in the middle of the bed in addition to the lee cloth so that there would be very little space to roll around and we would be wedged into place with pillows and blankets from head to toe. It’s not a good position to be in if you have claustrophobia. Luckily, I had no such fear, but I was very glad the next morning when Reid put up another sail first thing because the wind had lightened up enough to allow the mainsail to be used safely. My seasickness was duly present for the hours of rolling, and despite the good advice to stick my head out the hatch for some fresh air every now and then, I wasn’t about to risk getting drenched in the process, so I stayed inside and listened to some music. I would have rather been reading a book, but that increases the feeling of nausea and working on the computer is like reading a book. As a result, I did neither, but I did hear some nice Celtic music. Reid and Soanya