Tue May 03 2022 00:10:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
My watch started out sailing along slowly at about 5-6 knots in 15-18 knots of wind, nothing special, just raining…raining…raining…raining. Then a little before midnight it started pouring rain much harder, then suddenly the wind shot up to 22 gusting 40+. We collect data with a Raspberry Pi onboard running Signalk, InfluxDB, and Grafana and it shows 45.8 kts at the peak. The boat speed also went up, with weirdly flat seas Pulsar was making 8.8-9.5 knots consistently through the water and when we hit the occasional wave surfing over 10.
For perspective, in a big sailboat like Pulsar, 4 knots feels like walking, 6 knots feels like a run, and 9 is like you strapped a rocket on. The progression of how it feels is not at all linear.
So that was exciting, but I guess not enough. While doing that a pod of dolphins showed up. I didn’t realize it at first because I didn’t see them or hear them…I saw their trails through the crazy bright bioluminescence when I looked out to get an idea of the waves. We’ve seen this a number of times before and it never ceases to impress, it’s one of my favorite things watching them zip around and leave trails of bright color behind them. They are so fast it’s like we’re a snail, even going 9 knots.
Handing off watch to Rachel and Kirsten now that the squalls have passed. We had to pull in the sails and are motoring along because we couldn’t make any real speed in the direction we’re going anymore. All of our sailing today has been due to squalls…I never thought I’d miss them.
-Graham
S/V Pulsar 