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Road to the Sea

The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew

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by Tim · December 15, 2020

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She takes pictures…

It back! 1 Second (Almost) Every Day. (Or, more ac

It back! 1 Second (Almost) Every Day. (Or, more accurately, 1.5 Seconds Sone Days, 3 Seconds Other Days and No Seconds the Rest of The Days). We really wish I had kept it up through winter in PT—there were so many little moments to appreciate—but it was so hard to remember when, big picture, most days looked so similar.

We didn’t think there would be enough wind to sa

We didn’t think there would be enough wind to sail yesterday, but we were able to sail over half the rainy way way from Coupeville to Skagit Island. (We could have sailed the entire way, but wanted to make it before dark, due to a late start). This is the first time since leaving Port Townsend that we haven’t been anchored outside of a tiny town. Here with a view of the bridge over Deception Pass, which we’ll be making our third (and likely last) transit through on Monday.

The many moods of Coupeville over two days. A dear

The many moods of Coupeville over two days. A dear friend brought me here by land a few weeks before we left Port, and I thought, “This sure looks like a nice town to anchor in front of.” So we did.

Honestly, I think my last post was much more inter

Honestly, I think my last post was much more interesting than this one, but it’s guaranteed which will get more likes. 😐

Sitting here twiddling my thumbs on a rather uneve

Sitting here twiddling my thumbs on a rather uneventful 2.5 hour passage north, so I thought I’d give my landlubber friends a basic lesson in reading wind and current numbers.
::
There’s pretty much no wind today, so we’re motoring. Photo 1 shows our wind meter. It says 7.7 knots. Isn’t that enough to sail in? Sure! Our boat can probably go 3 knots in a 7.7 knot wind. So why are motoring? Let’s look at a few more factors. This wind is 7.7 knots apparent (the speed of the wind our boat feels, while moving). The true wind speed is the speed measured from a single static point. See the arrow on the meter? It points in the direction the wind is coming from, so we’re moving upwind (into the wind). In photo three, you’ll see our SOG (Speed Over Ground) is 5.7 knots. If we’re moving at 5.7 knots into the wind, we’re actually creating 5.7 knots of our own apparent wind, which means there’s only two knots of real “true” wind in front of us.
::
But doesn’t the boat sail according to apparent wind? Yes, it does! But recall that I said we can go about 3 knots speed in about 7.7 knots of wind. So if we were to turn off our motor and start sailing, our speed would go from 5.7 knots to 3, which means we’d stop generating about 2.7 knots of our own wind, which means the apparent wind speed would go down to 5 knots, and our boat can maybe go 2.5 knots in 5 knots of wind, so it would slow down some more, and so on.
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Also note that our course is directly upwind—right on the nose of the boat. A boat’s sails can’t fill at that angle; they have to be a good deal off of the wind. Our boat points better than many, and we can get decent speed in decent wind anywhere further off than 35°, abut many boats need 50 or higher. That puts us at a position of “beating against the wind”—going in zig zags to reach the destination, which makes the overall miles you have to cover much higher.
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[cont. in comments…]

The view of the Cascades from Langley is probably

The view of the Cascades from Langley is probably the best I remember from anywhere on the boat around here, and we’re running out of places we haven’t been around here. We’re only about 20 miles East of Port Townsend, as the crow flies, but the mountains seem three times as large. (Of course the iPhone then shrinks them back down to 1/10 what our eyes see).

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