The deluge begins...

TIME: 2021/06/01 03:10
LATITUDE: 05-08.33N
LONGITUDE: 152-03.03W
NEXT WAYPOINT: 22N-159W
COURSE (COG): 010T
BOAT SPEED (SOG): 2.7 kn
WIND SPEED (AWS): 6 kn
WIND ANGLE (AWA): 30 degrees
SEA STATE: 0.5m E & 0.5m S Swell, confused, coming from all directions it feels like
COMMENTS: Clearly you can see we are motoring as we can't sail in 6 knots of wind at 30 degrees. Starting around 3:30pm local time today the rain started. It had been quite beautiful up until then. The last rain cloud took all the wind with it. We need to charge the batteries anyway, so have the starboard engine is serving dual purpose. Hopefully we are not motoring all night.

Starboard tack: If the wind is from the starboard, the vessel is on a "starboard tack". (Source: Offline Wiki)

Before we left Tahiti, D received a question from a friend about what tack we will be on for this trip. D and I looked at each other, shrugged and did the only thing one does when stumped by a question...Google. The whole nautical term thing has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Good thing there is not a CYA instructor breathing down my neck every day trying to beat the sailor into me. Believe me, I did that, it was not fun, decided lessons were not for me. As an aside, on those miserable sailing lessons, the positive part of that experience was the other student with us. Shirley made those five days fun!! Speaking of nautical terms, here is another one, lazy jacks. Lazy jacks are the lines which help keep the main sail organized when lowering it. Anyway, Shirley preferred to call them "Idle Johns" so that is what we call them now.

Anyway, back to the starboard tack. That is what we have been on since leaving Tahiti. Non-stop, just a single tack so far. To be clear, we LOVE our Leopard 384. We truly feel we lucked out into buying the perfect boat for us. Now that is not to say the boat is perfect. The people who designed our boat clearly did not anticipate this boat being sailed on a starboard tack with waves being thrown into the cockpit or torrential rain driving into the starboard side of the boat. Why, do you ask?! Oh, because when in such conditions we end up with a swimming pool accumulating under our cockpit table. There is no thru-hull to allow the water to exit. So when waves are crashing over the side like it was the first few days or like today when we are experiencing driving rain, we need to spend a good deal of time mucking out the water out from under table. Because the other key design feature is that our house battery bank is stored under one of the benches around the table. A super convenient spot when needing to access the batteries, but not such a convenient spot when mixed with water. There are a couple of examples where Leopard likes to combine water and electricity in their design. Anyway, every boat no doubt has its questionable design elements and so for the last 14 days we have been able to enjoy the oversight that Leopard put into weather and sea state into their design when on a starboard tack. I have no doubt my instructor, Bob, tried to teach me what a starboard tack is, but now thanks to this trip, I will likely never forget.