Passage to Hawaii: day 18

Date: Mar 29, 2012
Distance remaining: 463 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 150

Date: Mar 30, 2012, Time: 10am Hawaii time
19° 49' N 149° 28' W
Wind speed: 18 / wind dir: 050 (NE), Heading: 280, Speed: 6.0
Barometer: 1018, Water Temp: 73
Log: 5003.0
Distance remaining: 316 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 149

Its been sweet sailing for the last three days. I can leave the boat on a broad reach all day, starting below my rhumb line and end up above the line after a 24 hour run. Then I switch to wing-on-wing and let the boat run for another 24 hours and end up below the line. All the time I'm making good progress toward my destination. Right now I'm back on a broad reach, running well in moderate seas. There is the occasional wave which reaches up and hits the underside of my starboard solar panel and splashes its way into the cockpit. But aside from these infrequent rude waves its been a pretty dry ride. The boat continues to pitch, roll and yaw in the waves we are in, but not as much as it has earlier in this passage or earlier off the coast of Oregon. Its a pretty comfortable ride, although you rarely relax on board - I'm constantly bracing myself against something. My sea berth has been great for sleeping in - when lying down I can feel the boat rolling/pitching/yawing but the motion is minimized by where the berth is (close to middle of boat) and I can easily fall asleep. Being rather tired probably helps with this.

If everything remains relatively the same weather wise, I should be in Hilo on Sunday. Yipee! I don't want to arrive at night, and so will make a decision tomorrow on whether or not I continue at this pace, or slow down to ensure a daylight arrival. If I slow down, I'll arrive on Monday. I'm not exactly racing along as it is - the main is reefed as is the genoa. Its a conservative plan which handles the occasional gust up to the mid 20's easily and is comfortable. I would make a lousy racer if this passage is typical of how I'll do all long passages, as I'm not pressing the boat or myself very hard.

I continue to see a lot of flying fish around, although they are getting better about staying out of the boat. I am also seeing schools of infant flying fish - roughly 1 inch long with little wings. As the boat moves through the water I'll come across a school of these and they will all take to the air and fly away. It looks like the surface of the water erupts with tiny insects that are flying away - its hard to believe they are really fish. Which leads to the question: if a group of flying fish is referred to as a school in the water, do they become a flock when they take flight?

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March 29.  24 hour surface

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March 30.  24 hour surface

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Passage to Hawaii: day 16

Date: Mar 27, 2012
Distance remaining: 745 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 121

Date: Mar 28, 2012, Time: 10am Hawaii time
20° 12' N 144° 13' W
Wind speed: 13 / wind dir: 055 (NE), Heading: 280, Speed: 5.5
Barometer: 1018, Water Temp: 73
Log: 4751.7
Distance remaining: 613 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 134

If I recall, in my last report I reported that the winds were lightish but that the boat hadn't fallen below around 4 knots of speed. Shortly after sending that report, the boat speed fell to 2.5 and stayed there for a while. Drat. Even with the swell falling this light wind left Luckness at the mercy of all the waves that rolled through, rocking her side to side for hours. On top of this, the previous night's run had left us north of the rhumb line and in order to get back south we had to sail wing-on-wing - which accentuates the rolling. Another good training day! At around 10pm more wind arrived which sped the boat up but left it rolling.

Yesterday I didn't touch the sails or monitor steering adjustment at all - the boat was heading in a good direction and I just let her run. The wind would back and veer slightly all day, leaving me slightly north of where I wanted to go, then slightly south with the result being that Luckness was almost directly on the rhumb line all day, with little diversions north and south.

Last night's run left us south of the rhumb line as the wind backed to be more northerly over night. This morning I lowered the pole, brought the genoa back to the port side and went onto a broad reach where I am now, making decent speed toward the destination. I think I'm now in trade winds! The winds are now NE and ENE mainly with lightly scattered low level cumulus floating by. Last night the boat continued to roll as I was still wing-on-wing.

I have 'seen' two more AIS targets today so far, neither one of them came within visual range but its a reminder to me that there are other boats out there. Both were cargo ships running at around 13 knots.
As you may recall, my 20min timer has three levels of alert after 20min: 1min of blinking light; 1min of alarm clock loud alarm; and then a fire-alarm intensity horn until the reset button is pressed. Last night I managed to incorporate the alarm clock buzzer into my dream three times, telling myself that 'that noise is nothing to worry about.' Then the fire-alarm buzzer would go off and I would get up and chuckle at the dream. Its as if parts of my brain aren't sure about what is going on out here. Before starting this passage I was wondering what it would be like. Now that I'm 16 days into the passage I'm still trying to figure out my reaction to it. Sailing all this way is a very physical process with lots of moments where you can reflect about where you are and what's going on. My 'upper' brain is totally on board. I know where I am, how far there is to go, how to get there, what it takes, where I am in relation to other bits of land etc. But my 'gut' doesn't seem to realize where I am sometimes. I think its related to the lack of landmarks as we move - there just really isn't anything to see out here to help you track your progress and my 'gut' doesn't seem to understand latitude/longitude. When moving south from Seattle I could at least track the stars shifting as I made progress - the north star is now lower to the horizon that it was when I started for example. However going west there are no landmarks to follow. I think there is a part of me which is in denial! I can look out and see something like 4nm visually in all directions, so there is a patch of 50 square miles of ocean I can look at from my cockpit. But one patch of ocean is much like the next or last. I remember on my trip from Neah bay to Drakes bay just north of San Francisco, I was offshore the whole way and only saw land as I left and arrived. In a way that trip didn't become 'real' to me until I saw land again - the time inbetween is spent in some sort of limbo where you know time is passing, things are happening, progress is being made, but in some way its artificial until you can see a different piece of land again which makes it all concrete.

Anyway. I'm looking forward to shouting "land ho!" and seeing the island of Hawaii come into view sometime in the next week or so.

Everything is going well here. Thanks for reading!

Later eh.

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March 27.  24 hour surface

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March 28.  24 hour surface

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Passage to Hawaii: day 14

Date: Mar 24, 2012
Distance remaining: 1117 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 110

Date: Mar 25, 2012
Distance remaining: 987 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 130

Date: Mar 26, 2012, Time: 10am Hawaii time
21° 01' N 139° 46' W
Wind speed: 14 / wind dir: 045 (NE), Heading: 260, Speed: 5
Barometer: 1018, Water Temp: 71
Log: 4534.0
Distance remaining: 864 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 124

In my last report I was afraid that I would be left becalmed out here for several days as a new high built north of me. However as it turns out the winds have been pretty decent. I've maintained a boat speed above 4 knots all the time and have had periods where I have been surfing down 10-14 foot swell at 8+ knots. Yipee! On average, the winds have been on the lighter side. Also note that I now have less than 1000 miles to go. It seems a bit strange saying "less than 1000nm!" as if the remaining distance is hardly anything. This has been an interesting experience so far, a good one.

Its generally been cloudy here, although the cloud is mostly low level and allows enough solar energy to get through so that my solar panels are able to keep my battery bank charged. The battery bank has been reaching 100% at some point during the day, every day (the panels are currently generating 11amps in a blue sky patch with 9Ah left until a full charge.) The temperature is starting to warm up a little. For the last two weeks, I've been wearing multiple layers as the daytime temperatures have only been in the mid 70's. The water temperature has warmed up by a few degrees now, it has been down to 67 along this passage but is now 71. I expect the warming trend to continue as I approach my destination.

Luckness is continuing to sail well. Yesterday I didn't touch the sails all day, and other than a few small adjustments to the monitor direction the boat sailed itself. I've been noticing little bits of chafe appear on the monitor control lines, and the application of some teflon tape to the line in the region of the chafe has been able to keep it in check. (Its not teflon tape, but some high tech low friction sail tape I've forgotten the name of, its nicknamed "millionaire's tape" due to its cost. Pretty handy stuff.)

I'm feeling good. I continue to eat well and have no aches or pains. My 20min sleep sessions seem to be working. I feel fine during the day, no yawning and I'm able to read with good concentration. I usually nap briefly in the middle of the day, and then after its dark here and I've eaten my hot meal, I'll start sleeping again at around 9pm and keep doing it until 6am or so. While my sleep is continually interrupted I seem to be getting enough overall.

I don't have much to report here. I saw an AIS target today but was never able to see the ship as it was 16nm away at its closest point of approach. I have been seeing albatross along the passage. They are amazing birds and I can watch them soar around for quite a while.
I'll report back in a couple of days.

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Passage to Hawaii: day 11

Date: Mar 22, 2012
Distance remaining: 1342 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 129

Date: Mar 23, 2012, Time: 10am Hawaii time
21° 34' N 133° 27' W
Wind speed: 8 / wind dir: 010 (N), Heading: 200, Speed: 2.2
Barometer: 1020, Water Temp: 67
Log: 4219.4
Distance remaining: 1219 Previous 24 hour run: by GPS: 123

The boat is slowing down again. I've been watching the weather every day, downloading weather discussions, GRIB data and receiving weather faxes. The wind I have been in for the last three or four days has been gradually weakening first far behind me but approaching me faster than I could move west. Today the weaker weather has arrived (or, the stronger winds have left...) and I'm currently just puttering along in light wind. With 8 knots of wind I would be moving well in flat water, but this water isn't flat and 8 knots isn't enough to move very quickly downwind where I am. I've also reduced sail area as the rocking motion of the boat is hard on the sails as they roll from side to side. Its also noisy and annoying to listen to the sails slat all day. Its going to be a relaxing few days, as it looks like stronger wind won't arrive for at least 48 hours, perhaps longer. However something else will be arriving before the wind. There has been storm after storm far to the north of me, heading east toward the coast of BC/Washington. Some of those storms have weakened into gales and have dipped further south. As a result, I'm going to start receiving larger swell. Its pretty awesome to be sitting in swell produced by storms thousands of miles away, it gives you a good sense of the theory of waves, how powerful storms can be, how large an ocean it is, etc. On the other hand, the swell is forecast to be up to 18 feet high, which will be a little annoying. Its nothing dangerous, it will just be long period large waves. But when there is no wind locally, more waves just add to the sailboat-as-carnival-ride effect. This is my training year however, and I just think of this as a Good Opportunity to receive some more training.

In the last blog post I said something like "there just isn't anything out here!" Shortly after that message went out my AIS receiver's alarm went off as it had started to receive a new target. It was 15 miles away with a calculated closest point of approach of 4nm, behind me. I watched the situation develop and it all unfolded according to what was expected. So there are other boats out here! The receiver saw another target again today for a vessel that passed within 16nm of me, out of visual range.

Aside from weather and other traffic, the big news here is that I'm now over half way to Hawaii! Last night at around 10pm I crossed over longitude 132deg 30min which was half way for this trip. The first half took 10 1/2 days. I'm getting an extremely slow start to the second half here, and it looks like its going to stay that way for a few days. At some point as I approach Hawaii I expect the wind to become more consistent, it'll be interesting (to me!) to see how that expectation turns out.

Things are going well here. I have good reading material, I'm eating well and staying safe. I hope the same is true for all of you!

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March 22.  24 hour surface

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