And then… it comes.
The wind roars, the swell grows, the ship rolls and rolls, jerks and heels. A day of heavy sailing.
It is November, the year 1520. Ferdinand Magellan left behind his struggles sailing in stormy Patagonia and through the strait that today bears his name. Now he comes across a large body of water unknown to him. Conditions are calm, the breeze fair, the winds are finally not raging and the seas have soothed down. He names this ocean “Pacific” (meaning peaceful). A lucky day for him, but a denomination that doesn’t bond together with the real character of those seas. Maybe it can be peaceful now and then, maybe it can happen along other latitudes than the ones we find ourselves at, but sailing along the Roaring 40’s of the largest oceanic division on Earth is proving to be not exactly “peaceful”.
The truce of relatively good weather that the South Pacific gave us is over, at least for the moment.
Sailing at the northern edge of a deep Low Pressure system, the wind strength rises, the seas grow, the sun doesn’t show up, the rain falls, the lines of showers keep on sweeping over our track, and one after the other the squalls hit us.
At dawn it was time to start getting ready for what was hovering over our heads and was about to come. Then a steep dip in atmospheric pressure, which eventually takes a few hours of rough sailing before it steadies. One Low Pressure system catches up with us. The forecast tells of easing winds and better weather once it passes and before the next one hits.
And as announced, here it came. The numbers talk for themselves about what’s up:
30, 35, 40, 46kn of wind and even more during the passing showers
5, 6, 7 metres of swell
7, 8, 9kn of speed
3 sails are set on the Fore Mast, two on the Main, one at the Bowsprit and two of the lower Staysails above the Main and Sloop Deck respectively. Reduced canvas to deal with furious winds and powerful oceanic swell.
A couple of days ago we had a hint of how these waters can treat us. Today, already more prepared and having been introduced to these conditions, we have a better disposition to face the different conditions in the South Pacific, Southern Ocean and eventually the Horn, although the raging winds and high seas in the seemingly endless chaos of the sea are always imposing. Exciting to endure while we try to keep the given course in a big running sea, while our feet are swept away by the rushing water on the Main Deck splashing port to starboard and then back, or while aloft we try to hold fast furling a flapping sail that has just been doused in the wild wind conditions. And like that we sailed 155 nautical miles, while a straight line to the Horn shows 3630 miles to go. A sort of good reference but a route that never happens when at sea. Lows and Highs pass by, winds shift and turn, the course adapts to them.