Testing the waters

When I opened the hatch to step out into the cockpit for my midnight to four am watch, I felt for a bit the romance of the sea. Sputnik was sailing smoothly in the ocean swell on a starboard tack in about 12 knots of wind. Jud had the tiller secured and the windvane was steering the boat. It was dark with the glow of the chartplotter and most wonderfully the sky was bright with a canopy of brilliant stars. I had forgotten what they looked like, even though we live on an island in the Salish sea away from city lights. There was the Big Dipper and over there Orion’s Belt. And in between the recognizable patterns, millions more. So many gorgeous twinkling diamonds! I couldn’t stop smiling at this wonder, and was looking forward to my shift. Jud eventually went down to rest and I got to enjoy the dark, the sky and the swell for myself. Bliss.

It didn’t last long. Within the hour as the wind shifted slightly and I attempted to adjust course, the sails flogged and before I could correct, Sputnik had hove to. Not at all what I had in mind. After several attempts to right the ship and struggling with the windvane and sails, I had to call Jud up from his much needed sleep to help. This happened a few more times during my watch and to say I was unhappy about it would be only half of it. Certainly I feel I should be able to manage sails on my own! And at those times, even in weather when it only got to about 25 knots of wind speed, I could not. I sometimes didn’t feel strong enough to pull in the wet furler line to shorten sail. I couldn’t see nor get the timing right to fill the jib and stay the course. Something wouldn’t budge and I was fighting the windvane. It was complicated by the dark and getting completely disoriented, as well as not being able to figure out how to adjust the windvane adequately. We also likely had too much main sail up. It was then my mood shifted to anxiety and upset and I questioned whether I even liked sailing at all. I didn’t like being this stressed. I didn’t like being tired. I didn’t like the wind and rain. I didn’t like that I didn’t have radio contact with our buddy boats. I didn’t like that we were sailing to nowhere. I didn’t like avoiding the ships as our course had taken us through the shipping lanes off Cape Flattery. The original plan was to sail to a point on the chart 120 miles offshore and back for two days to test our skills in offshore sailing. Here we were, nowhere close, and it didn’t seem possible to get there for at least another day based on our point of sail. I thought that maybe I don’t have what it takes to do this and quickly started thinking about what we might do if we put this dream on hold.

The last hour of my watch things settled down with the windvane working as it should and the sails under control. The wind was starting to increase but it was all still manageable. The cruise ships and cargo ships showing up as targets on our chart plotter were all avoided without any action on my part. I was exhausted though and I gratefully handed Jud responsibility for Sputnik’s navigation as I tucked into sleep in our sea berth midship.

My next watch at 8 to noon was much better. Jud had the tiller balanced in the middle, the wind vane working perfectly, and the sails close hauled. We were bouncing along at a good controlled clip. I didn’t have to make any adjustments and if I did, it was daylight out and I could see things. It was what I was hoping for at night- less activity on my part. Easier to manage sail trim and actively sailing during the day.

Jud had the last watch before we safely made it to Uclulet harbour. It wasn’t our original plan, but sometimes you have to sail the wind rather than a destination. It was a good choice.

I was happy to host our buddy boats for VICE (Vancouver Island Cruising Experience) 2026 for coffee the next morning. It was good to debrief with and learn from crew on Seadra and Euphoria. We learned that others had their own struggles (seasickness!) and successes too. We tried to figure out what went wrong with our agreed upon radio communication times. We laughed when when we interpreted the mysterious zigzags and circles on Sputnik’s course (no we weren’t turning around, we were just confused!). I appreciated the generous and joyous nature of our most experienced sailor/coach Ed. His tips on briefly using the motor to help if sail changes are too difficult was a good one. After I expressed my doubts about being ready to go offshore, he disagreed. He thought we were ready and with a few tweaks we would be fine. For the most part we wouldn’t sail south in these contrary conditions and would have the swell with us.

He gave me something to ponder. And I have things I want to work on before we start off in a month or so. For now, we rest in Uclulet and wait for the right winds to head back to Sidney for some final rigging repairs.