Tuesday, February 21 — The seas had been calm on Monday until about 2030 (8:30 pm), when the swells, swell period and wind chop all started to pick up. By midnight, Kosmos was pitching so much that we had to always had to have one hand holding onto the boat or else we’d get knocked over. The forecast didn’t have the seas picking up this much this fast; it was supposed to be a gradual worsening.

The wind continued to increase throughout the night. It was hitting us on the forward port quarter (for a visual, from 10:00 on a clock). Even though it was dark, from the incredibly uncomfortable motion, it was obvious that the wind chop was coming from that direction, while the swells were on our nose, making for confused seas. The motion was like a half-pitch, half-roll.

At 0400, an alarm went off which indicated that the autopilot couldn’t see the data from the navigation system. Christi woke Eric up. He turned it off and back on again, and it magically worked fine.

When it was finally light enough to see, we surmised that it was probably 5 – 6 foot swells at about 4 – 6 seconds, plus 2 – 3 foot wind chop.