We are now pinned down by the wind at Porto Vecchio, on the southeast coast of Corsica. The weather forecasts show the next three days as mostly in the 15-20 knot range. If the wind would stay in that range wed be delighted. However, the actual wind weve been seeing is much higher. I dont know if it is the surrounding terrain funneling the wind through the bay, or if the wind is just higher than forecast. Yesterday, the wind was mostly around 15 knots, with occasional bursts as high as 35 knots. Yesterday evening the wind picked up to 25 knots and stayed there all night, with occasional leaps into the 30s, and at one point reached 46 knots. Thats a lot of wind! As to what this means for us... Sans Souci is anchored securely. Up to 40 knots I have no concerns about our breaking anchor, and if the wind were to go higher I have enough space around me to put out more chain. The biggest concern is always that some other boat might break anchor and come sailing into us. I anchored away from most other boats to minimize this risk. For us, my only real concern is for the small stuff, like the bimini top on this boat or our tender, or the cushions on the settees. Not only could the canvas be ripped away, when the wind gets into the 40s, the light aluminum framing can be bent. Overall, the risk to our safety is low, but the annoyance level is high. When the wind passes about 20 knots we dont like to leave the boat. My guess is that we wont be able to go to shore for at least the next couple of days. There is a gap of time in the mornings when the wind is low enough that we could, but we were awake much of last night, listening to the wind and checking our circle. Getting up early to go to shore isnt happening. Also, the dogs are not liking the sound of the wind and the movement of the boat. Their potty area is outside, and they dont want to go outside. Instead they sit and shake and just look miserable. They dont understand what is happening or why. We cant even go in the hot tub! We tried last night, but couldnt hear each other talk with all the wind noise. It wasnt the relaxing soak it is supposed to be. Of course, none of this is life-threatening, but it does count as annoying. I included the picture of our circle (the tracing on our chart-plotter of the boats movement) just to show how neat the circle is. When the winds are light the boat tends to drift around, and towards the center of the circle. As you can see the winds have been steady from the west, and kept us swinging in a nice neat arc. Any tracing outside the circle would indicate that our anchor is shifting, and be most unwelcome. There is one potential serious problem I need to focus on today... We have flopper stoppers (big butterfly-hinged aluminum plates) dangling in the water beside our boat. We call these plates, The Fish. The fish hang from giant fishing poles on each side of our boat. Their goal is to reduce the side to side motion of the boat. Because the wind is keeping us pointed into the same direction as the swell (waves) the flopper stoppers wouldnt ordinarily be needed. They only help with swell, and when your nose is being held into the swell by the wind, there is no roll (side to side motion). There is only pitching (up and down movement of the bow). However, yesterday there were frequent speedboats that would come zipping by our boat at full speed, generating huge wakes. Our boat is somewhat unusual for where we are, with the strange poles hanging out the side, American flag on the back, and rugged look. We attract too much attention at times. The boat wakes are a bigger problem for us than the wind. Anyway... the serious problem is... Did you see the movie The Perfect Storm? In that movie there is a scene which I thought was silly at the time, but last night felt much too real. The fishing boat in that movie had something very similar to our flopper stoppers, except that they are intended to reduce side-to-side roll while running, whereas ours are optimized for stabilization while sitting still. When the seas were rough, in the movie, the wind grabbed the fish (the dangling plates) and they became missiles. Mark Wahlberg had to climb out on one of the poles to cut lose the fish with them flying through the air like missiles. At 30 knots of wind, the lines that hold our fish in the water were hanging diagonally. Whereas when we dropped them they were hanging straight down, sitting about eight feet beneath the water. When the poo was hitting the fan last night the lines holding them went so diagonal that the fish came very close to breaking the surface and becoming flying fish. Tonight will be worse, and I cant let that happen again. At some break in the action today Ill remove them from the water. With the wind this high today there wont be many boats cruising past, so they wont be needed anyhow. Boating is never boring!
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 07:34:58 +0000
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