Issue #1

First off, as you may know, Cannibal is very unusual in that she has two centerboards…or rather should have two centerboards. On Cannibal, the main board is located just aft of the mast and is used primarily for upwind work. The mizzen board or trimmer board is located further aft toward the after end of the keel. The mizzen board is used primarily for reaching and off the wind work to reduce weather helm. This arrangement is one of the things that makes Cannibal so special. She sails very well balanced at any point of sail if you have the boards adjusted right. While we were sailing from Mona Island to Ponce, the wire pendant that controls the mizzen board broke. “No big deal,” I thought, “When we get to Ponce, I’ll dive under the boat and refasten it.” Well, when we got to Ponce I dove under the boat and lo and behold, the whole centerboard was gone! We are talking about a 500# chunk of molded fiberglass. Yikes! So after making some phone calls, I finally got in touch with the designer’s son, Nord Embroden. He has the molds for the centerboard and can have one made up. Yippee! But the cost of this little construction project he estimated at $3500. Yikes! So the question was now, “How bad do we need it?” I knew we could sail without it but didn’t know for sure if the autopilot would be able to handle the extra weather helm. After doing a little sailing, we determined that although the boat sails better with it and we are taking a little performance hit, we can live without it for now. So the plan is to get the measurements from Nord and fab one up when we get back to the states.

Issue #2

As we continued to forge eastward toward the Virgin Islands we finally got to Culebra. As you know from one of Shirley’s earlier posts, Culebra is one of the Spanish Virgin Islands and is part of Puerto Rico. While in Culebra, we were moored in Almodovar, a little bay around the corner from Ensenada de Honda and the town of Dewey. One day we decided to go to town and so loaded up our friends from Kalida and Toucan and took Cannibal around the corner. After a successful shopping trip, we sailed back to our mooring in about 12 to 15 knots of wind. As we turned into Almodovar we had to gybe the mainsail. After it came across, it blew out. Ripped from leach to luff. Yikes! So now the question was what to do. This sail has been sewed on so many times that to repair it this time, we’d be putting patches on patches…literally. So I began searching for a new mainsail. I could have a brand new one made…for about $4000. Yikes! But there are also places that sell used sails. So I began looking for a used sail. Our sail is pretty big, 48 ft on the luff by 18 ft on the foot so there aren’t just a whole lot of that size lying around. But being in Puerto Rico, my cell phone had a great data connection and so I could search the internet over Sprint’s awesome EVDO network. Yippee! I finally found a sail that supposedly has about half of it’s life left (thats about 4 times better than ours was when we bought the boat). All for the amazingly low price of $425. Yippee! So I placed my order with the Sail Warehouse and expected to receive my sail in a few days. That was on Friday the 16th. We found out the following Monday that the sail wasn’t scheduled for delivery until the 23rd. For some reason Fedex thinks Puerto Rico is an international shipment so everything takes longer. No big deal we figured we could find something to do around Culebra for a few more days. However the next morning Fedex adjusted their schedule now showed delivery on the 28th. Yikes! So we decided to bail out of Culebra and head on over to the Virgin Islands under our big 150% genoa only. The neat thing is that when sailing with only the big genny, the lack of our mizzen centerboard is a non-issue. And the boat still makes pretty good speed. We were making 7 knots today going to windward. Yippee! Anyway Fedex has continued to adjust their delivery schedule and now are showing the 30th. Oh well, we are cruising the Virgin Islands so were in no hurry.

It would be nice to have it though. If we did, we’d be entering a race tomorrow on Jost Van Dyke and Cannibal would be “eating up” the competition. More on that regatta later.

Ciao for now!

When we crossed the Gulf of Mexico in January, we sailed 800 miles in 8 days; 5 days of that time in very rough and adverse conditions. Of course, if we had waited for a week-long weather window we might still be in Texas. Since then we’ve come an additional 700 miles in about 80 days. We were “sailing” across the Gulf. Now we are cruising. Sure we’ve stayed a bit longer than the weather dictated in some places due to repairs or the desire to have additional time to enjoy the area. But even so, we have also spent lots of time waiting for weather windows

A weather window is a forecast that indicates that the wind and seas will be favorable to moving in the direction you want to go. The thing about the Bahamas and tropics in general is that the prevailing winds are from the East. When I say prevailing I’m talking in 58% of the time in Turks and Caicos, in the month of April, the winds blow from due east. If you factor in the NE and SE winds you have now accounted for over 95% of the winds in this area. That means that less one day in twenty does it blow from some other direction. If you are headed east in a sailboat it does tend to slow you down. So you are always on the lookout for a weather window calling for winds from another direction or at least of diminished strength.

We have been waiting here in Provo for 12 days for a weather window to allow us to head east. For the last 12 days the winds have been 20 to 25 knots out of the east or southeast. Thats 23 to 29 mph for all you landsmen and women. Pretty windy, especially if you are “beating to windward” which means sailing as close into the wind as you can.

But the weather does change, even here. Tomorrow the wind is forecast to drop to around 15 knots and then continue to diminish to around 10 knots through the rest of the week. It will still be mostly from the east, but there will be some northerly component later on in the week. So we have a big wonderful weather window that will allow us to take fairly short daily runs and still have good weather to get all the way to Luperon, D.R.

As you might imagine, weather forecasting is an inexact science. In fact, Shirley wouldn’t classify it as a science at all but more like voodoo or some sort of myth or superstition. Sometimes the weather is good but the forecast didn’t see it coming. Other times the weather is bad when the forecast said it would be good. We have been misled by a few weather forecasts in the course of our voyage, beginning with our Gulf crossing and recurring a few times since then. So we are always in search of good, reliable, forecasts. If all forecasts agree, then you can pretty much count on them being pretty decent. It is when there are some outliers that you have tough choices to make. I have seen the NOAA weatherfax disagree with the NOAA text forecast. What are you supposed to do with that? Anyway, here is our normal weather forecast buffet.

• Weatherfax charts from NOAA. These can be downloaded from the web or received using the computer and SSB radio if the internet isn’t available.
• Text “Offshore Waters” forecasts from NOAA. These can be downloaded from the web or received over SSB radio if the internet isn’t available.
• Radio weather guru. Chris Parker of caribwx.com broadcasts his expert opinion every morning on SSB. He is widely regarded in the cruising community in the Caribbean as the final authority. You always hear people saying,” Did you listen to Chris?” or “What did Chris say this morning?”
• GRIB files from NOAA. These are new to me. A Dutch cruiser named Hugo from the beautiful Van De Stadt sloop “Zeestar” (Starfish) turned me on to this. They are available over the internet  on the web or via email. I have just begun using a program called Ugrib. It is available FREE from www.grib.us. You have to register (free) before you can download the program. It is the bomb, totally. If you have any interest in weather or weather forecasting at all, I highly recommend it. You can customize what info you get and how far in the future you want the forecast. The program then provides a graphical representation of the forecast on a zoomable chart of the world. VERY cool. Did I say FREE and VERY cool?
• Local weather. This is available from various sources via VHF radio. Marinas and local authorities provide this service.

So there is your primer on weather windows and the reason we have been in Turks and Caicos for 12 days.
We’ll be leaving tomorrow for better or worse. We’ll be back online when we get to the DR.

Later.