Sunday, 30June, 2013: Fox Cove to Skyline

Weather:  Sunny and warm.  Winds:  W to SW 0-5.  Seas:  <1ft

Woke to calm winds and seas.  Took Bug (our 1990ish Gig Harbor Boatworks dinghy) and my fly rod on a tour of the Fox Cove environs.  Did not catch anything, but it was nice wetting the line!

Interesting day sailing.  Started out motoring.  About halfway to the eastern point of Orcas Island, a west wind started to pick up.  I decided to air out the asymmetric spinnaker.  Have I mentioned the spinnaker is huge?  With a 26ft foot, I finally figured out I had not been able to fully expose the sail in a downwind as there is only 12.5 feet between the bowsprit and the outside edge of the ama.

So, I modified the barber hauler.  This line runs from the cockpit, out to the ama and then forward, up to the bow of the ama and acts as a whisker or spinnaker pole would.  The mod is simply a longer line not ending at the ama bow, but crossing over to the bowsprit.  At the bowsprit, I can attach the spinnaker tack to the line and then pull it out over the water, towards the upwind ama, thus flattening and thereby enabling more of the spinnaker to see the wind.

It worked great!  In 3kts apparent wind, we made 3kts.  In 5, 5kts.  Ultimately, we hit 8kts rounding the eastern point of Orcas.  More data is required, but if we continue to hit a knot per knot of apparent wind, this is an improvement over last seasons run up to Princess Louisa Inlet where we were doing 8-9kts in 12kts apparent.

Once again, San Juan winds proved to be sporty.  As we rounded the point, BAM, the wind smacked us in the face and the spinnaker collapsed.  So, stowed the spinnaker, raised the main and set the genoa for a beat up Rosario only to motor then motor sail etc.  Approaching the south end of Cypress Island, the winds became a steady SW 5 and we had a nice 5kt beat home.  Nice to be sailing!

We continued to be plagued by the battery alarm.  Ammeter showed 45amps into the LiFEPO4, descending as the batteries charged, with the engine start battery switched off.  Voltmeter showed 14volts.  Normally shows 14.2volts with the engine start battery connected.  When the LiFEPO4 batteries were fully charged, the alternator voltage dropped to 13.8 (as it should) and the amperage dropped to 2.5 (as it should).  The alternator appears to function properly.

Suspect a cell in the engine start battery might have failed.   Since the alternator is a stupid alternator, I have kept an engine start battery aboard to control the alternator.  Will need to experiment with this configuration....  Else, I wonder if the battery alarm has started to fail.