Text Author: John-Frederick Thye

A) Technical Information

1. Our Route

2. Wind

3. Current

4. Wave Pattern

5. Double Handed Sailing

B) Off-Shore Stories

1. Bang!

2. Fishing Boats At Night

C) Where Are We Now

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A) Technical Information

1. Our Route

As the route we are sailing down the South American coast is not widely used by sailors because of its adverse conditions of wind, current, and wave patterns (Flo described these phenomenon in more detail in our last log report), various parties have shown interest that we document our progress in a technical as well as personal style. We are happy to try to do so and are eager to provide information as well as time and energy permits us, since we are proceeding with only short rest intervals down the coast.

2. Wind

We sailed around Trinidad's north coast upon our embarkation in order then to take a direct course hard on the wind, at an average of 39 degrees apparent wind, on a port tack, to the French Guiana islands Iles du Salut. We had many wind shifts, northerly and southerly shifts by as much as 45 degrees. These lasted up to a few hours. The average wind direction for us was East-North-East. Wind speed ranged from 12 to 35 knots apparent wind.

3. Current

The current was stronger than we had expected. Pilot charts show averages of 1.5 to 2 knots for the North-West setting Guiana Current for the area between Trinidad and French Guiana. Closer to Trinidad this was the case for us, but the current grew stronger closer to French Guiana and as we neared Cabo Orange, the cape that lies on the French Guiana - Brazilian boarder. The last 100 miles of our leg to Iles du Salut we experienced current against us of up to 4.8 knots. The adverse current caused us to sail 960 nautical miles through water, while only making 657 nautical miles over ground. This leg took us 5 days.

4. Wave Pattern

Waves on our leg from Trinidad to Iles du Salut set predominantly West with an average height of 1 to 2 meters. Wave height and steepness varied every hour and we encountered wonderful smooth long waves in which our catamaran sailed effortlessly between the valleys without any pounding. On many prolonged incidences, however, the boat pounded violently threw the chop, but managed to keep enough speed for our ship log to show a minimum progress of 5 knots through water.

5. Double-Handed Sailing

Flo and I are sailing from Trinidad to Natal, Brazil, double-handed. We have tried different watch systems and have found that what is working well for us is 4 hours alternative watches during the day and 3 hour alternative watches during the night. We currently have shorter night watches than day watches because we find the nights to be more fatiguing.

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B) Off-Shore Stories

1. Bang!

There are always so many tales to tell about sailing adventures. Below just a quick summary of 2 experiences we made that were very interesting to us. The first is that of a noisy gear failure. I was in the middle of one of my night watches, when at 0100 hours I made my way from the cockpit back into the salon to check on some navigational data. The boat was moving with sharp thrusting motions through choppy cross-waves that seemed to come from all directions. The soft red-green-blue glow of our navi desk's light panels provides a relaxing atmosphere inside the boat's fly bridge. When suddenly an explosive sound jolted the boat's frame from outside - Bang!!!! The starboard sheet jerked convulsively making loud cracking sounds. As sailors get to know the sounds of their boats, I knew instantly in the darkness what the problem was before turning on my flashlight. Quickly I confirmed our problem, the high performance Harken jib lead had ripped off its sliding car. This seems unbelievable because the mechanism is designed (by Harken specifications) for loads up to 2700 kg, which is 5952 pounds. Could the jib sheet really exceed that kind of pressure? We concluded later that the failure was probably due to fatigue stress, primarily caused by the violent luffing motion of the jib during maneuvers. This cannot be avoided on our catamaran, however, when sailing single-handed. In any case, we had to remedy the situation in order to carry on our voyage, as we were 150 nautical miles offshore. We decided to temporarily replace the damaged starboard car with the intact port equivalent. We would try to make French Guiana on one tack and try to buy a replacement lead there. We have also thought of some emergency fixes for the damaged lead.

2. Fishing Boats At Night

One other incidence I thought was particularly worth mentioning. On the offshore boarder between Surinam and French Guiana we encountered numerous fleets of commercial fishing boats, primarily at night. This forced us to often drastically alter course, or slalom between the scattered fisherman, who were trawling large nets and sometimes abruptly altered their course in pursuit of the best catch. In one situation our common navigational grounds were getting a too tight for comfort, as we were caught in a 4-square mile vicinity with 3 fisherman who didn't seem to carry proper running lights. I turned on our VHF Radio's emergency channel 16 and engaged Wildlife's mast top strobe light, in addition to our standard running lights. And surely enough, to my pleasure the fisherman closest to us instantly radioed me with warning of his broken starboard running light. We chatted in English over regular intervals for the next 30 minutes until gaining a secure distances again. I tracked him on our radar, as well as taking bearings on him with our Steiner binoculars that have a built-in compass. Flo and I had debated in Trinidad if we should buy the 200 Dollar mast-top strobe light, and I am now happy to see how quickly we were able to get attention with it from the fisherman. An expensive, but good decision, a common compromise sailors often face.

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C) Where Are We Now

Iles du Salut, is a 3-island archipelago 6 miles offshore, and marks the spot where we made our first landfall in French Guiana. We spent a few hours exploring the main Island, Ile du Royal, and have found that a visit here is a must for sailors passing bye. The Islands are exotic and dramatic in appearance and boast mysteriously fascinating reminders of their history with the many ruins, large stone steps and landings. Jimmy Cornell describes the islands as follows in his World Cruising Handbook, "A penal colony was established in the mid-nineteenth century on the inaccessible Iles du Salut, which became notorious, especially Ile du Diable - Devil's Island - where political prisoners, including Alfred Dreyfus, were kept. After WW II the prison was finally closed, the last prisoners leaving in 1953." Now the Islands are a heritage site and military outpost.