Jessicawatch – fresh water
One of the best aspects of Jessica’s narrative is the quality of the English. Call me prejudiced but I somehow didn’t expect her to be able to churn out such simple and “immediate” prose, making it come to life:
I’ve just come back into the cabin after pulling the fishing line in for the day. No fish but the lures are covered in huge big teeth marks, so looks like I’ve been getting some nibbles! Well maybe nibbles isn’t the right word? I’ve decided not to think too hard about exactly what left the great big teeth marks, but I’m sure it wasn’t anything nearly as dramatic as my imagination would like me to think.
I can imagine the imaging there.
Using the mainsail and the little gutters we strategically built into the dodger, I was able to collect enough water to top the water tanks up, fill a few empty containers and give myself a lovely fresh water scrub down. In fact I ended up with more water than I knew what to do with – even after washing all my clothes. So I decided to get right into it and ended up giving every surface in the cabin a wipe down.
Water is always the issue on long voyages, that and fresh fruit:
Anyway this brings us to one of the questions that I still haven’t answered for you all – water.
What am I doing for fresh water? Believe it or not along with all the food, Ella’s Pink Lady is pretty much carrying all the fresh water I’ll need. It might sound a bit hard to believe but I’m only using fresh water for drinking and cooking and there’s only one of me.
Also, I’m relying on being able to top up the tanks again in squalls a few times before leaving the tropics and heading south. As an emergency backup Pink Lady’s also carrying a little hand desalinater, but judging by the amount of water I was so easily able to collect today, I don’t think that I’ll ever need it.
Currently, she’s not far off the equator, one of the rules of the circumnavigation, if it’s to be officially recognized. European and American boats cross it as a matter of course but antipodaean boats have to go out of their way up there and then down again.
Mast rotation
Sorry not to let this rest and I do see where Andrew Duffin’s coming from but to suggest that MR is not simple makes a multihull sailor smile. Monohull Bermudans use a vang anyway, as well as backstaying and a lever is not a great deal different from a vang. By rotating the mast to wind, the stress on the rigging goes down and the pounding in the seas is greatly reduced, both surely desirable traits, plus the boat is much faster through the water and smoother.
We’re assuming here that the mast is stepped on the deck anyway. If it is stepped on the keel, then a gaff set-up is better for cruising. Either way, the Bermudan is one of the least friendly and least efficient cruising rigs about downwind. Gaff is better, junk or lateen is better still – less flappable, fewer reefing issues, much simpler and not necessitating going forward in a blow.
The jib is a lovely sail upwind but downwind it is horrible and to have to go to the bow, especially for that girl, is not going to be nice. Add roller reefing and the problems double.
Why do modern sailors stick to the Bermudan?
Habit – that’s all. They’ve been brought up not to question supertall, unstable rigs, relative to gaffs, schooners and junks and just adapt it into blue water sailing where it really is not the best option.
Filed under: Leisure & travel
Well I guess I need to answer these points – all of them good ones.
In criticising rotating rigs I was thinking about the bearings/bushes/whatever which must carry the weight and the tension of the rig, and must also minimise friction in order to continue working. That sounds like sophisticated engineering to me, and we know about Mr. Murphy. Perhaps I’m mistaken and it’s simple and robust? Ditto inmast reefing and the other nightmares I mentioned, but I see you didn’t disagree there…
You’re right about gaff rig downwind, of course; nobody would argue, really. And on a round-the-world voyage, unless you’re mad like the Chay Blyth lot, most of your sailing will be downwind. The other side of the coin is miles and miles of string, and some large heavy spars that don’t get smaller as you reef, but just get nearer to your head – unlike a Bermudan mainsail which gets progressively smaller and more handleable as the reefs come down.
I wonder if in fact the best solution is a cutter-headed rig, probably a ketch, so you have lots of little sails to play with; many variations possible, nothing too large, a “spare” mast in case you lose one, and of course make some special arrangements for downwind. Cruising chute, twin headsails, whatever. Seems to have worked well for quite a few round-the-worlders; the Hiscocks spring to mind.
I’d be wary of junk rig because if you ever do have to go to windward, heaven help you – that rig won’t. But this may just be ignorance; I’ve never sailed a junk-rig and I know that people who do, some of whose boots I am not fit to polish (Richey, Hasler, I’m thinking of you), do swear by them.
btw my rig is not super-tall, or unstable. Are you thinking of out-and-out racing machines again? Apples and oranges…