Atlantic Ocean beyond 40° meridian
position 15° 49′ North 044° 17′ west
Thursday 28 October 2019 12.00 local time, 14.00 UTC, 15.00 Italian
Miles traveled by MIndelo 1119
Miles missing in S. Lucia 967
THE TAVERN ON THE OCEAN
Sunny day in the trade winds, which do not abandon us and blow incessantly from 14 to 16 knots, cooling the air which is becoming rather hot.
28 degrees celsius and 70% relative humidity, in other words you sweat easy and thank goodness there is wind.
Today’s weather analysis predicts stability for 24 hours, then there is an instability line called TROPICAL WAVE (those who have followed the courses with us will remember), which will cross us and bring a decrease in the trade wind (disturbed by this wave of tropical instability) and will give way to winds from the south east, not strong but with more frequent storms and squalls. We await this variation for tomorrow. Today we see the first signs, the horizon ahead is more gray and the wind has started to rotate from North EAST to ENE tonight and to EAST full from this morning, for this we have jibed and brought the faithful Genny to starboard and the genoa tangonato to the left and we manage to keep a direct orthodromic on S. Lucia with a 170 ° wind angle to the left. with 13/16 knots of wind and from 7.5 to 8,5 knots of speed SOG (Speed Over Ground) with half a knot of current (NEC – North Equatorial Current).
The stability under a Gennaker down wind is simply extraordinary, so much so that last night in the Taverna sull’Oceano, while we were charging the battery pack with the generator, we were able to use the dishwasher !, a fact that is usually not possible in navigation due to ocean rolling. With the Genny the roll is gone.
Every evening the crew abandons their daily activities, some fishing fruitless, some reading, some meditation, some contemplation, some bricolage, some communications, in short, everyone has their own to do, and we sail absorbed in the silence of ocean until something common to do emerges. In the evening, however, at sunset that brings the group together, the first organizational signs begin to emerge for the evening in the Taverna, the place where we have dinner and chat for two or three good hours.
Yesterday during the day I was reflecting on the “verb” and the “sword” and with this I refer to the antipodes in medicine, that is the psychiatrist and the surgeon, (coincidentally together on board) as evidence of the vastness of the materia medica, which comes to involve everything human knowledge, from philosophy, theater where the mind sweeps freely, to the almost artisanal practice of us surgeons; both are indispensable links in the man chain and “bring health” to man. In my studio I have two old paintings from the 1600s, one depicting the doctor’s dress (with stills and potions), the other the surgeon’s dress with knives and scissors and saws. In fact, the surgical origin starts from the surgeon, or the barber, who was called to incise abscesses or stop bleeding because the noblest of medical thinkers was unable to do so.The duality between spirit and matter, between mind and arm, has led barbers to forge surgeons and doctors to forge psychiatrists, who come from philosophers, a much nobler lineage than barbers! In a few years in the second half of the 18th century Kant publicly discusses with Metzeger whether the management of madness and the teaching of nascent psychiatry should be the business of philosophers or doctors; it is clear how it ended. Just as surgeons are afraid of the meanders of the mind, psychiatrists stay far away from bloody medical practices, they fear and avoid them, to remain enveloped in a thinking aura, made of culture and sometimes philosophical and metaphysical aspects, although indispensable. to cure. But I was reflecting precisely on the fact that there is a link between matter and spirit,and passes through biology, which responds to both psychic stimuli and mechanical disturbances, and thus speaking of our experiences, at the Ocean Tavern, we find analogies between psychiatry and surgery, analogies between the organic expression of an apparently only problem mental and a psychic expression of an organic pathology, and I told of how, from touching a vein of a patient, from feeling how it yields or how it resists the surgeon’s maneuvers, one can get to outline aspects of the person’s character and life, so how the psychic patient manages to transform a conflict or a phobia into organic. Thus the extremes approach, and the surgeon is fascinated by the meanders of the mind and by the innumerable correlations with religion, epic and philosophy,but at the same time the psychiatrist is fascinated by gestures and by what the hands can do, if united with the mind.
Very fascinating, but enough of these things, you must know that yesterday we risked a very important failure, which would have seriously compromised the rest of the journey. That’s why I always say, ocean navigation is simple, but long, and equipment wear and tear can always happen, and usually everything happens in a moment.
In Las Palmas I did a good check of the new rigging (after 1800 miles from Punta Ala) it was correct to string and check that the mast was ok. At the same time, given that the furling jib was “blocked” in the section between Gibraltar and the Canary Islands, despite a badly conducted overhaul in Punta Ala by the same men who worked on Ariel, so much so that a new check and a new overhaul to replace some worn parts. In doing this job, which was carried out in a workmanlike manner by ALOISOS toolmakers, accustomed to preparing boats that cross the ocean, from mini 6.50 to maxi yachts, we discover a probable weak point of the bowsprit, despite the Hallberg Rassy technicians. they stated that it was all normal, I notice a small “crack” on the steel pole to which code zero or Gennaker is inflicted; we decide to reinforce it,and in a few hours the steelmaker from Gran Canaria produces an excellent piece. It is now indestructible. When reassembling it, however, they probably omit to mount the stop of the bowsprit side play (very slight, but there is). Yesterday at lunch in the radar visual check of the bow I see the pivot of the bowsprit half out! This means that if he had taken off with 180 square meters of sail no longer held, we would have destroyed the pulpit of the boat and who knows what other problem.we would have destroyed the pulpit of the boat and who knows what other problem.we would have destroyed the pulpit of the boat and who knows what other problem.
But someone made my eye fall right there, so we lowered the big sail, built a hoist to reinforce the piece of steel and the pin that was coming off, placed a new suitable catch and reinforced it further with a hoist. in dynema, which I always carry in pieces of one and two meters on board, not useful, but indispensable. We rearmed the Genny and in half an hour of work we solved it. It is always the commander’s fault, I should have checked at the departure from Gran Canaria that it was properly fixed, but I trusted their professionalism. Luckily the gaze went in the right direction yesterday at lunch.
I had to talk to you today about the sleep-wake rhythm and other interesting correlations between ocean and human body response, but we leave it for tomorrow.
