Autumn Cruise - facts and figures

Playing with the new GPS and found the trip computer page ...

In the two and a bit days we were under way we covered 86.37NM in 26 hrs 3 minutes at an average speed (over the ground) of 3.3Kts.

Max speed was a whopping 8.6kts (again, over the ground) which is pretty impressive for a wee little boat with a max hull speed of 5.9kts! Even with a fair tide we must have been sailing well at least for a brief moment :)

Checking back in the deck log, we were motoring or motor sailing (more motor than sail though to be honest) for 6 hours and 23 minutes so we were sailing for 19 hours and 37 minutes. That's a ratio of getting on for 3 to 1 which I'm not too unhappy with especially given the circumstances under which we found ourselves resorting to the smelly noise machine.

Looking at the track log, I'm annoyed to discover that whilst the active log time stamps the saved points, when you save a track into the GPS memory it only stores the position. Memo to self - download the active log each day to the laptop in future!

Never the less, it makes for some interesting analysis. Apart from two areas we pretty much nailed the nav to my satisfaction - there's a major squiggle coming back into the Crouch when we shook out the reef in the main due to several minutes mucking about when the sail refused to hoist fully but otherwise our tracks were pretty much straight lines. I especially like the almost ruler straight track all the way from Medusa to the Wallet Spitway!

However, there is, it has to be admitted, the failed attempt to sail across the Spitway! This is the second time I've utterly failed to make any appreciable headway to windward when reefed and fighting a wind over tide chop. The first time we even had an appreciable fair tide, this time it was cross-tide.

Although we seemed to be tacking through around 100 to 105 degrees, looking at the track our effective tacking angle was actually about 160 degrees! Now Brigantia may be a little old twin keeler but no WAY does she make THAT much leeway! I'm left pondering several imponderables ...

Were we actually tacking through 100 to 105 degrees? I wasn't paying particularly close attention to the compass at the time and now I wonder whether, with the reefed down genoa, our tacking angle was a good deal worse than I thought it was. Without a foam filled luff it would seem unlikely that she'd tack through as tight an angle reefed as she will with full sail but the genoa seemed to be setting OK.

Just how much leeway does she make? My impression, and I'm naturally good at judging angles and relative motions, is that in (relatively) flat water under full sail in a decent breeze she doesn't make excessive leeway. In fact, although I'm a little reluctant to claim it, I can't say as I really notice her making any appreciable leeway at all (and I certainly notice PDQ when we're being set off course by the tide). Certainly, looking at our outbound track, where we put in two tacks as we worked our way up the coast past Clacton, she clearly can sail well to windward in the right circumstances.

Could we have carried the full genoa? Would it have made a significant difference? Perhaps I'm overly cautious but I'm reluctant to put the rig under severe strain. A lot of the running rigging is well worn and starting to show signs of wear and tear (although the genoa sheets look pretty new), the sheet winches are ancient and definitely need replacing and I have no idea when the standing rigging was last replaced. The shrouds and stays look OK but what horrors are lurking where they can't be seen? Especially inside the roller reefing spar, for all I know the forestay may be hanging on by a thread!

Finally, I suspect that to a significant extent the critical problem is that with a small, relatively light and relatively shoal draft hull we're just getting smashed backwards by the power of the waves when trying to fight our way to windward in the face of a short steep choppy sea. In fact, it would be hard to come up with a situation less suited to a boat like Brigantia! She just doesn't have the grip on the water or the power to cope with such conditions. We might well be able to improve matters but I suspect in such circumstances we'll frequently be reaching for the engine starter cord!