Around Point Conception

9-3-06 Sunday - We got up at 3:30 and left on the leg that we most dreaded - rounding points Arguello and Conception (the Cape Horn of the Pacific). We motored out of San Luis and before long were sailing on a light broad reach. We sailed all the way to Pt. Sal before the winds got lighter and dead aft. In my youth, I would have sat there and sailed at 3K, but we needed to get by Conception before the afternoon winds really got honking, so on with the engine and back to 6.5K. At 8:30 in the morning, things got busy. The mainsail came down with a bang. It turns out that the main halyard (the line that raises the mainsail) had chafed right through on the end cap of our new sailtrack. There was a sharp place there that had not been noticed, but that didn't keep it from cutting the halyard. So there we were without a mainsail. Not to worry, when you are going downwind it is a good thing to have all the sail on the downwind end of the boat. That makes the boat want to go downwind and eases things for the autopilot. The picture shows us sailing along on just the jib. If you look close, you can see a little piece of halyard still attached to the top of the mainsail. The wind at this point was blowing 17K and as we approached Pt. Arguello it climbed into the 20's. So we were moving along very quickly. Between Arguello and Conception (about 10 miles) the wind climbed into the 30's and I saw 40k once. That is a gale! But we were moving briskly. However, we needed to hold a course dead downwind if we wanted to avoid a jibe (and who wants to jibe a jib in 30K?)(landlubbers, sorry!) So, I had to give the autopilot an hour off. In those seas, it couldn't anticipate well enough and I could do a better job. There had to be some reason why the boat brought me along and this was it. For the next hour, I hand-steered from the inside helm station. The boat was a kitten to handle, even in those big, confused seas. We surfed a few times and the max speed shown as 11.9K. Not bad for a heavy boat, loaded with groceries. The small steering wheel inside actually gave me a quicker response than the big one in the cockpit. It was remarkable how calm it was inside. We were talking in a quiet voice. Andi was sitting at the dinette, watching the waves. But, when we went out to the 'back porch', all hell was breaking loose out there. The wind was howling and the stern wave was roaring. Much nicer inside. In this hour, I really got it why we picked this boat and how happy I am with her. Once we got around Conception, the autopilot went back to work and it got steadily lighter/smoother the closer we got to Santa Barbara. Just at dusk we came into SB harbor and tied up on the end tie of Marina 3, B dock.
Our first gale and a trial by fire came out well. The problem with the halyard was not related to the weather and we have fixed it here. In fact, I have added another main halyard as a backup. I had 600 feet of new halyard line stored, so we put it to work.