Day 12 Post By Jon
Trade Winds
Day 12 8:00 A.M. (525 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
157 NM Made Good to Hawaii over the past 24 Hours.
Day 12 12:50 P.M. (500 NM from Hawaii)
We are in the tropical trades, and currently they are light around 10 knots. The forecast is for them to slowly build over the next few days but nothing to the extreme; all good news.
My shift this morning from 4 A.M to 8 A.M. was eventful with 3 head sail changes while I was on the helm. I kept the helm through 2 hours because there was so much changes in the conditions that it was best for me to be at helm, where I have the most experience, and let those crew members who understand the rigging more do their magic.
We started out with full main and largest symmetrical spinnaker with 12 to 18 knots of wind. The higher winds were caused by overcast features passing along our course. We were never sure if they were thin or heavily laden clouds. As soon as I took over the helm from John it started to rain and the winds changed direction radically but not much more intensity. We were concerned that this was a squall so we decided to drop the spinnaker and raise the jib top because the changing wind had resulted in a major reach, not good for the spinnaker. As you can imagine at night this is a challenge but since we had pre-ran all of the rigging for 4 different potential head sails we were prepared and the first peel went smoothly. A peel is the process of first dropping a head sail and then raising a new one verses raising the new sail first before dropping the old called running with a bald or headless sail. If the conditions are right for a peel it is preferred because a headless boat is a slow boat besides being smelly.
The tree head sail changes from last night and then this mooring change back to the symmetrical spinnaker resulted 23 hash marks on Nico arm; it now covers his entire left inside forearm from is wrist to his elbow.
There was only one section of this race I was anxious about, that being in the trades dodging squalls. All during my shift I was constantly on edge with the changing conditions and difficulty keeping the boat going fast in the correct direction. We were fortunate not to have any extreme conditions but it is amazing the toll anxiety takes from you. I slept soundly until my next watch at noon.
Day 13 7:30 A.M. (360 NM from Hawaii)
With 40 feet of waterline, nicely making way, though we can’t see the Southern Cross we do have a beautiful sky. If the weather hold we should be in Hawaii on Tuesday. We just had a reported potential squall sighting, so I need to go topside, will probably have more to report later.
avionbianca 
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