Photos and Observations

Roger here. with some photos. I'm not sure whether when published, the arrangement of text and photos will change. The photo of the two instruments, each saying Raytheon in the upper left, shows the following: In the top instrument the arrow pointing from the center, downward shows the direction of the wind -- from straight behind us. The little window in the lower part of that instrument shows that at the moment the wind was 19.5 knots (a knot is about 1.2 miles per hour). there is a little black square dot in the lower right corner of the 19.5 which shows this is true wind, rather than relative wind. In other words, the computer detects apparent wind and factors in the boat's speed and direction to give us the true wind speed and direction. The bottom instrument says "SOG KTS 9.9". This means that as measured by the GPS, the boat's speed over the surface of the earth (or in this case the water) was 9.9 knots. With 20 knots of wind pushing us but the boat going away from the wind at effectively 10 knots, the apparent wind was only about ten knots of force. The engine that created this factual scenario is the sail configuration, shown below.

Before we get there, however, the video, which I got to load, but not to play, shows the waves pushing at the back of our boat propelling us forward. These were not the biggest we had but pretty big. the camera was held stationary on the back of the boat. I hope you can get the video to play because as a still photo it shows nothing.

The photo of the two headsails shows how we achieved such speeds. The jib is shown flying off to the left in the picture, the starboard side of the boat. The other sail is the partially furled genoa, a much bigger jib which is mounted forward of the first sail, on its own roller, and in this photo is shown partially furled. Both sails front edges, their "luffs" to sailors, are in the middle of the photo, the vertical line. these luffs are about six inches one behind the other at the top of the mast and about 18 inches apart at the deck. so there is a slot between them, through which some of the air escapes. The boom is the aluminum pole that runs from the mast at the bottom of the picture, aft to the right side of the picture, and atop it is the stack pack -- the bag that holds the main sail when it is not in use as shown in the photo.

Some observations about what was unexpected or unusual to me about the ocean passage:
From New York to Tortola we were underway 260 hours; this is considerably more hours than we usually sail in an entire summer, and the hours especially in big seas and big winds, take their toll on the boat's equipment -- lines chafed, pins coming undone, blocks breaking, etc. Also, a knot of wind in the ocean is "stronger" than a knot of wind in Long Island Sound. Why? Because the wind is measured by instruments at the top of the mast, which measure the force of the wind up there, but often there is much less force against the lower part of the sails, where they are biggest; but in the ocean, the wind is just as strong at the bottom as at the top.
Following winds and big seas cause the boat to roll back and forth from leaning to one side to leaning to the other side. This is much more uncomfortable than heeling, which is what I was used to. In heeling, the boat leans one way, maybe a big more and then a bit less, but one way. We slept with "lee cloths"; canvas strips perhaps two feet high, that are screwed into the base upon which one's bed lies, and tied to the top of the cabin by ropes. They keep a person from rolling out of bed when the boat heels. I added a lee cloth to the big pullman berth that Lene and I usually sleep in. It worked great for heeling, but in rolling, I found that the whole mattress with me on it, slid about six inches back and forth when the boat rolled from side to side. Another thing about lee cloths: The beds are also the seats we sit on when in the cabin -- but with lee cloths up, these seats were unavailable; there was no indoor seating but rather one had the choice to stand or to lie down.
My prior ocean voyage had been from Bermuda to New York in July. There were rough days but no one got seasick and we had nice meals with wine each night. But this trip was in November and the seas were a lot rougher and so a lot of the food and drink remained unconsumed at voyage end. Summer is calmer, punctuated by violent hurricanes; winter is hurricane free but stormier overall.
We saw other boats much better at night than by day. At night the boats had red, green and white lights mounted at their mast heads. These we looked for to be aware of other boats in the vicinity.