Sophie and the Galapagos
Dan Holden use to race at the Butte a couple of years ago and then bought a big boat. Here is a recent update.
Captain’s Log from the Sailing Vessel Sophie: A Norseman 44’
4 PM local, February 28, 2012: 1 degree 49' N; 90 degrees 10' W
Man, in his penchant for symmetry, may divide the planet in half at the equator, but Mother Nature does it at the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ pronounced by some as itch), that snaky band of weather which meanders where it will, and for us it slithered between five and two degrees North.
We had some three or four days of hard scrabble sailing, with dozens of head sail changes, countless reefing and unreefing the main and developing a love-hate relationship with the squalls. In the end, we never really did figure out how to use the squalls to our advantage, and I guess if we were to score it, it would be squalls 5, Sophie 1.
It is unknown to me which definition of the term doldrums came first: the weather in the ITCZ, or down in spirit. For us on Sophie the two were one and the same. We could sense a little shortness in each other; we hopped out of our bunks for the night watches less enthusiastically and generally were in a bit of a funk. One squall did produce some heroic helmsmanship on Will's part: caught by surprise with all of our sails up, a 35-knot demon pounced on our naiveté. It was only by expert driving downwind in a horrific downpour that prevented torn sails or worse, a downed rig. For an hour Will kept the wind off the port quarter staring only at the mast head fly until the storm spent out its fury and drove us backwards several miles.
The animals seemed to take pity on us however, early one morning we stopped for an hour or so to change the oil in the engine and a dolphin that had been playing in our wake stopped with us, swimming around the boat as if to ask if we were OK and would we be able to come out and play again. Once the task was complete and we got underway the dolphin escorted us for a bit as if to ensure we would be all right.
This morning we were treated not only with fresh baked bread but also with steady, but light southeast winds, blue skies and blue seas, which lifted our spirits immediately. And as if to welcome us to a new world, a pod of a half dozen pilot whales came up to Sophie, trailed along for a while, flicked their tails and headed east. The big genoa and a full main pull Sophie south like a pair of oxen along the 90th meridian. There is almost no swell, Man's Line and the Galapagos Islands are just over the horizon.
We had some three or four days of hard scrabble sailing, with dozens of head sail changes, countless reefing and unreefing the main and developing a love-hate relationship with the squalls. In the end, we never really did figure out how to use the squalls to our advantage, and I guess if we were to score it, it would be squalls 5, Sophie 1.
It is unknown to me which definition of the term doldrums came first: the weather in the ITCZ, or down in spirit. For us on Sophie the two were one and the same. We could sense a little shortness in each other; we hopped out of our bunks for the night watches less enthusiastically and generally were in a bit of a funk. One squall did produce some heroic helmsmanship on Will's part: caught by surprise with all of our sails up, a 35-knot demon pounced on our naiveté. It was only by expert driving downwind in a horrific downpour that prevented torn sails or worse, a downed rig. For an hour Will kept the wind off the port quarter staring only at the mast head fly until the storm spent out its fury and drove us backwards several miles.
The animals seemed to take pity on us however, early one morning we stopped for an hour or so to change the oil in the engine and a dolphin that had been playing in our wake stopped with us, swimming around the boat as if to ask if we were OK and would we be able to come out and play again. Once the task was complete and we got underway the dolphin escorted us for a bit as if to ensure we would be all right.
This morning we were treated not only with fresh baked bread but also with steady, but light southeast winds, blue skies and blue seas, which lifted our spirits immediately. And as if to welcome us to a new world, a pod of a half dozen pilot whales came up to Sophie, trailed along for a while, flicked their tails and headed east. The big genoa and a full main pull Sophie south like a pair of oxen along the 90th meridian. There is almost no swell, Man's Line and the Galapagos Islands are just over the horizon.