Above is a screen shot of iNavX on my iPad mini into which I just put a waypoint at the entrance to Apia, Samoa. The straight line distance is 2260 nautical miles, only a little more than San Diego to Hilo. However, crossing the doldrums and the Equator for what I think will be my fourteenth time, more difficult to predict.
I plan to sail well east of the rhumb line until I reach the doldrums, which may be wider and calmer than usual this year. Also, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve never crossed the Equator this far west in the Pacific Ocean.
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Just across the street from the yacht club is a huge shopping center which includes a supermarket, where I can easily reprovision. Fortunatetly, also among its hundreds of shops are Dior and Versace, so I will also be able to pick up some new passage clothes.
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A reader, David, figured out why the SOG of the first position of a passage is so inaccurate. He surmised that the figure was the average speed during the six hours before the position, including time when GANNET was not underway.
This caused me to email Yellowbrick, and, as usual, I received an almost instant response from Nick.
The speed is an average speed between the last point and the current one, not an instantaneous one. So the first (and probably last) position you transmit is likely to be different from your actual instant speed at that point.
Because of the way the Yellowbrick works, the GPS is not kept on long enough to get a good 'instant' speed reading, so we tend to use the average one.
Thank you David and Nick.
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Hopefully a rigger is going to appear at GANNET at 7:30 tomorrow morning. I doubt he will do more than assess the job, but it is a step in the right direction.
In preparation I asked Buzz Ballenger his advice on where the running backstays should be attached to the mast, and, as usual, received an almost instant reply:
You will want the runners to oppose the headstay. The idea is to keep the headstay load on the runners to keep the load from pulling the mast forward when the load increases. You could install them 4 inches or so over the uppers.
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I have mentioned in this post two of the three best companies I have done business with since owning GANNET, or for that matter ever.
Ballenger Spars; Yellowbrick; and the third is Rudder Craft.
All are at the very top of their game, make excellent products, reply extremely quickly and usefully to queries and questions, and are a pleasure to do business with rather than an ordeal.
All three are run the way all business ought to be, but few are.
If you need any product they make, do yourself a favor and buy it from them.
