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Day 8 Post By Jon
A Typical Day in the Life of a Sailor at Sea (Continued!)
Day 8 8:00 A.M. (1402 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
184 NM made good over last 24 Hours
We are still nicely making way at 7 knots or so with fair winds out of the North\Northwest and following seas.
Day 8 3:00 P.M. (1168 NM from Hawaii)
I ended the yesterday’s log a little early; I didn’t include the rest of the day in the life of a sailor and we had a major course change.
I discussed earlier that racers very rarely sail the rhumb line or shortest distance between two points for many of reasons. That may not be the fastest point of sail for the particular boat racing, there may be favorable currents along a different part of the course or in the case of long distance racing there is the weather factor. We have had light, moderate and heavy winds so far and our preference would be moderate to heavy; we still want to join the elusive Rocket Club of Double Digits. Yesterday after I relinquished the computer John and Tom studied the weather charts that Tom had downloaded earlier. Our current course was taking us right back to the doldrums southwest of us between our current position and Hawaii. Though this course would be the shortest for us to take it doesn’t look like the fastest. Tom and John saw stronger winds further north of the rhumb line so they told us that we needed to adjust our course by increasing our bearing to 250 degrees rather than the 220 we had been on for the past few days. The forecast shows stronger winds further north when the isobars are predicted to spread on Friday
I was at the helm so I pushed on the tiller until the compass read 250 and all hell broke loose. It never fails whenever something like this is required I it never happens in a vacuum. Around that time a cloud came over with moisture and an increase in wind velocity and direction (22+ knots and 10 degree shift); not at all favorable to our new course heading. We first decided to reef the main by decreasing sail area since the boat was pitching and rolling. This helped a little so we decided to try the second reef point and keep the asymmetrical flying. Understand that it is much easier to reef then to change head sails. After the second reef, which I had never experienced on Avion though I use it all the time on my sailboat Antigua, I once again felt marginal helm relief but Avion was still not happy. It became obvious that we needed to change the head sail. One of the problems with having 10 different headsails aboard, sometimes it becomes a challenge to determine which headsail is the best for the current conditions and course. We had two choices; go to a smaller asymmetrical spinnaker or go back to the jib top. Kent resolved the dilemma by crawling out of his bunk, obviously wasn’t getting any sleep anyway, and explained to the crew that the best solution was the jib top. David turned to John for conformation and John agreed. Nico was happy; he gets another mark on his forearm. Like a red badge of courage Nico takes his trusty Sharpie Magic Marker out after each headsail change, this latest was number 13, and marks his forearm. Juan beat David to the punch and suggested that he replace the Sharpie marks with tattoos when we arrive in Hawaii and if we are lucky he can have them run all the way up one arm, across his face and down the other arm. He mumbled something about his mother not understanding..
After the headsail change Avion changed from a raging rodeo bull to a passive lamb; we needed something in the middle, like maybe a thoroughbred race horse. After shaking out the two mainsail reefs we got our wish and Avion started looping along at just under 8 knots to the proper course. We finish off daylight with dinner that was readied by the Skipper, just at the right time, since we were all hungry from all of the excitement of the course change, wind direction/speed change, and the headsail change. Again we were greeted by a fabulous hot casserole prepared by Kent and Joann of green chilies, cheese and eggs which truly hit the spot. We still have 2 more frozen meals to eat and then it is on to freeze dried backpacking food.
The day in the life of this sailor finished out by crawling into my bunk at 10 P.M. where I quickly fell asleep in anticipating of it all starting over in just 4 short hours., can’t wait.
Day 8 5:30 P.M. (1149 NM from Hawaii)
179 NM made good over last 24 Hours
Juan checked into the SSB Children’s Hour and asked the fleet listening if anyone knew the answer to the age old proverb; If a sailboat broaches in the vastness of the Ocean and no one sees it broach, did it actually Broach? He explained that after 8 days at sea Aero, a Hobie 33, crossed Avion’s path by less than of a mile. Shortly afterwards a small squall passed by with winds in excess of 22 knots. Nico was at the helm and managed to ride the gust out with no issues and we watched the wind line pass Aero and she rounded up. So we were unable to prove or disprove the proverb since we saw it. Jaun did state that there was a benefit to their broach. We benefited because we got an excellent lessen on how to quickly recover from a broach and they benefited because we were sufficiently distracted to sail off our course and possibly lose as much time as them.
Since we are only 114 NM from our halfway point we are looking forward to having our halfway celebration tomorrow assuredly providing Juan with more humorous stories to relate.
Today the sun returned and we are ripping along under the red A3 spinnaker over bright blue water. This is the mythical blue water sailing that I have been dreaming about. This blue water does not have a proper adjective, but it is fair to call it beauty-fuel. The surface is shaped by the wind into waves that intersect with larger swells that come from storms 1000 of miles away. The randomly raise and pick-up the boat as the surge under and beyond. Clouds are dynamic and change shapes and colors as the approach. They move fast and bring wind, so they command attention. As they approach, they shape-shift, look like birds or anvils, or long reptillian birds flying by.
We are almost half-way to Hawaii, and near the point where we will be 1,000 miles from land in any direction. From my boat, with my crew sailing to this isolated point on the Pacific Ocean, I feel closer to nature than I have felt on land in a long time. I not feel insignificant in this magistry, but rather expanded and inspired.
It has taken a 7 days to get here, which is slower than we had expected due to the light winds the first two days. But “early” or “late” is a land-based abstraction with little meaning here. Now that the winds are blowing an average of 15 knots, I know we will get there. We planned on 12 to 14 days to reach HA, but provisioned for 18 days of water and food, so if we get to HA in 15 days, so be it. The parties will have to wait until we arrive.
All we do is sail, eat, sleep and repeat. This is a dream-like state. Of course, the sailing is intense and when the conditions change, we get to change sails which involves a lot of cooperation between the front of the boat (bow) and the back of the boat (cockpit), and very tight coordination on the halyards, sheets, guys and poles (spinnaker) to complete a sail change that enables Avion to be sailed on a specific heading. When Avion is properly trimmed for the desired heading, she settles into a calming and relaxing rhythm. Sleep comes easily. Eating is not always so easy for the cook, but we are eating prepared stews and casseroles, so all we do is heat it up in the oven. Served in bowls, a hot meal tastes great. Life can’t get much better than this.
Tom
Day 7 Post By Jon
A Typical Day at Sea
Day 7 8:00 A.M. (1402 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
191 NM made good over last 24 Hours (may be a record for Avion)
Looks like Avion is now stretching her legs; our next goal is a 200+ day. This kind of performance requires team work and a constant focus on boat speed. We are still broad reaching (approximately 140 degrees off the wind) so there isn’t a lot of sail trim so the critical factor rests primarily on the helmsman. So I thought I would take a little time today to work through a typical day on the boat. I will use my experience as the guide and explain a few variations of the other crew members along to way.
Day 7 2:13 P.M. (1353 NM from Hawaii)
I just got off watch and still a little wired from the great ride we just had so I thought this would be a good time to lay out my day. My day starts at 2:00 A.M. by a gentle tug on the leg by Tom, who is ready for me to take his place on watch. The temperature is warm and relatively dry so far so I usually strip off the top layer to sleep. Now getting ready for watch doesn’t require as much “gearing up” as it did the first few days out the gate because most of the heavy foul weather gear has been stowed away in the wet lockers. I’m typically wearing a one layer of full under garments a light sun resistant tech shirt and a sun resistant light pants. Early morning I add a wind resistant light jacket over that then the inflatable life jacket. The life jacket has 2 tethers, a hand held radio that will radio out my lat/long position, a strobe light, a whistle, and a knife. The reason for 2 tethers is that you can always be attached to the boat while moving around. This is all dawned before climbing the companion way of 6 steps before entering the cockpit. This is a critical moment because the 2 or 3 crew members are watching closely to my next move because it potentially provides them with an opportunity for a Mai-tai. If I do not attach my tether to the lifeline before making that final step out of the companion way and onto the cockpit floor you owe the crew a pitcher of Mai-Tais. They tend to look closely at Juan because they know there is a potential Juanism in the making that will provide a constant source of entertainment and libation. Understanding this potential cash flow issue Jon tends to take command and doesn’t provide Juan the opportunity to dip into his cash reserves. Knowing Juan he would enjoy sharing the Mai-Tais with his crew mates at Jon’s expense. I remember a time when a female sailing friend of ours once asked my late wife Jean who she preferred Juan of Jon. Having never heard this asked before and not knowing her response I paid close attention. She thought about it for a moment and then said Juan. I immediately responded with, “That’s not fair to Jon, he has to work so Juan can have fun”!
Once in the cockpit it takes a while to get oriented figuring out the wind, waves and sail set. I am typically still pretty sleepy so a good thing at this point is to ask your crew mates on board if they would like anything hot to drink. If so I heat up some water and fix the requested beverage, mine is typically a Mocha with decaf-coffee. The drinks vary from decaf-tea (Kent), to regular tea (John, usually specified as to the type), to hot chocolate (David), to coffee (Tom). I came close to finding out the hard way that having a hot beverage for your crew mate doesn’t exonerate you from the Mai-Tai rule! The remaining two crew members on watch usually allows the new crew member an hour or so to get oriented. The boat at this stage of the race typically only takes two to drive; one at the helm and one with the boomvang in hand to release if the boat starts to head up or the end of the boom touches the water. The boovan is a spring loaded cylinder with a 8 to 1 block that pulls down on the boom. Releasing it allows for wind to spill off the top of the main lowering the center of effort allowing the mast to list less which allows the helmsman to recover the boat stopping the flogging of the sails and a potential broach. This is a constant action because of the waves and variability of the wind. In these two positions there is little relaxing, especially for the helmsman. After an hour or so the helmsman is getting a little fatigued, this become evident by the other crew members when they notice more variation on the course and an increase in the required releasing of the boomvag. It is usually the other crew members that suggest that the hour is up and not the helmsman because this is by far the most fun position on the boat and like the night of Nico’s birthday I stayed well over my recommended 1 hours limit.
At this point the crew usually rotates if there isn’t another crew exchange on that hour. At 3:00 A.M. at we do not have a shift exchange so we shifted positions. While doing so Juan became a victim of one of David’s many practical jokes. While I was shifting my position to handle the continuous boomvang line my tether got twisted up with that line. David in a very compassionate tone said that he could help Juan out with his predicament. Nico at the helm started laughing wondering when Juan was going to notice that having the boomvag line rapped twice around his leg and once around his wrist in the process of being lassoed wasn’t exactly beneficial. Enjoying the moment Nico was taking great care not to allow the boat to be in a position to require the release of the boomvag line and wondering how a Cowboy from Wyoming could have such a thing happen to him!
Much to Juan relief John came up to relieve David reducing the probability of another practical joke and I shifted to the helm. At the time we were experiencing 20+ winds but the seas hadn’t developed over 4 feet so it wasn’t a constant E-Ticket ride but it did have its moments when the wind speed and a larger than average wave would combine to push Avion to 9 knots. By 5:00 A.M. I am ready for helm relief so when John asked if I was ready for shift position change I readily confirmed. The last hour usually is a combination of resting, handling the boomvang line or taking a short stent at the helm before the new crew member is fully acclimated. This basic pattern can change as to which hour you are at the helm based on the crew change timing, overall I average about 1.5 hours per shift at the helm.
Just before 6 A.M. I go down and wake Tom how comes on board and I crawl into the sack for some much needed shut eye. Tom spends a portion of his watch navigating and downloading new weather information and maintaining his log. At 8:00 A.M. he notes our Lat/long position and shoots off an email to the race committee. I wake up before 9:30 so I can fire up the SSB and check in to the Roll Call. The other radio net is the Children’s Hour at 5:00 P.M. where I will come below if my I’m on watch. The cooking, cleaning up, and various other duties are either performed by the third crew member not holding the helm tiller or the boomvang line or another crew member not on watch but up. We are having Dinner around 8:00 P.M. and usually we are all up for that unless one crew member is trying to catch some sleep at which time we keep the oven on warm until he gets up and fixes himself dinner before taking the last step onto the cockpit floor greeted by two crew members to Mai-Tais dancing in their heads.
Kent usually gets the dinner out of the cooler (still frozen after 7 days) and places it in the cockpit to thaw for dinner. John takes a stroll around the boat looking the any chaffing of lines or rigging ware. Kent placed a piece of hose on the guy line because John noticed some potential chaffing where it feeds through the spinnaker pole. He also placed some sail tape at the bottom of the sail where it was rubbing against the boom while the out haul was let in or out. At the 1 P.M. shift change with dowsed the Asymmetrical #3 spinnaker that has been flying for over 24 hours to see if the halyard holding it up was chaffing at the top of the mast. Seeing none we immediately raised but it hour glassed and Kent was able to quickly get it to unwrap itself without further incidents and reduced boat speed.
Before the spinnaker dowse David fixed a delicious late breakfast of Thai Oatmeal, yes it was a new one for me also. He fixed oatmeal with dried fruit (raisins, crasains, chopped up apricots, and two secret ingredients; orange apricot marmalade and peanut butter thus the reason he called it Thai Oatmeal! I even asked for seconds and I’m typically not an oatmeal fan.
It is now 3:30 P.M. so I’m going to go have some of what I call My Time; read, relax, nap, cleanup, or just sit on the rail and absorb the beauty of the ocean without a care in the world knowing that the boat is solid and the crew is more than competent.
Day 7 5:30 P.M. (1328 NM to Hawaii)
185 NM made good over last 24 Hours
The good news is that the wind has been holding strong and our last 24 hours of distance made good is still holding strong, the bad news is that one of our competitive boats did better. I just signed off of the Children’s Hour net a little disappointed, they reported us in 4 place, dropping from 3 since the second day. We were able to verify that the ranking they are giving are distance made good to Hawaii adjusted for handicap. There is still a long ways to go.
12:30pm, Mon July 14
I made a tasty batch of oatmeal this morning, dried mangoes craisins apricots and a banana. It was even better with peanut butter mixed in.
Angie would agree that Avion has a lot of strings for a boat her size. All led to the cockpit, except for some of the spinnaker pole controls. So that, combined with a mainsheet traveler that goes across the rather small cockpit, makes playing twister as we shift the 3 crew on deck complicated. 3 of the lines are continuous loops, so they have to be contended with specially. Not to mention everyone has a dual tether, so we are clipped in at all times. It can get complicated. In the middle of this the tiller has to get handed off cleanly. Last night as we were playing the game, while Nico steered, Juan was wrestling the boom vang loop, his tether, where to put his feet, and keep his balance, I got the bright idea of “helping” him with the boom vang line. He was quite twisted up in all of it before he started to get upset, and only then realized I was “helping”. We had a good laugh, and later Nico told some of his Club Med prank stories. He taught sailing there in the Bahamas, and they seem to know how to have fun there. At least he does.
We just dropped and reraised the A3 spinnaker, paused to check for chafe on its halyard at the masthead sheave. Keeping track of and stopping these kind of issues is key. We’ve rejiggered how a few things are run to minimize stress, chafe and wear of the lines and fittings. The spinnaker guy is run inside the lifelines right now, as we have the pole so far forward for reaching on the A3. This is why some boats are set up with a reaching strut at the bow.
To bed for 3 hours of shut eye.
Day 6 Post By Jon
Sailing the Moon Beam
Day 6 8:00 A.M. (1593 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
91 NM made good over last 24 Hours
We celebrated Nico’s Birthday in fine fashion last evening. At the 8 p.m. watch change we were all up for the festivities and it turned out that the Skipper’s plan was excellent. The dinner that had been placed on deck early in the morning was Hungarian Gulosh from Tom’s favorite deli in Palo Alto. But before the dinner was served Tom cut up some cheese and salami which he served with crackers. While we were passing that around he gave Nico a present and while Nico was struggling getting all of the tape, paper and packaging off of it Tom explained that his family has a tradition of delayed gratification when it came to presents and Nico understood completely while in anticipation of what turned out to be extremely gratifying. There turns out to be a tequila from Mexico called Avion, so what better way to celebrate Nico’s Birthday than to have a shot of excellent Avion Tequila on Avion watching a spectacular sunset while eating a delicious meal. The weather could not have cooperated better; the over cast skies were gone but remained enough clouds in the distance to make the sunset stunning and the winds were steady at 8 knots and the seas were flat. Just as we were beginning to have sensory overload from the magnificent views of the sunset David turned to the east and was greeted by the very top edge of a huge full moon graciously exposing itself to his amazed eyes. He let out a hollow that could only be compared to a child having just seeing his favorite gift under the Christmas tree. We all turned to see what all the excitement was and were able to watch the big orange ball slowly rise out of the water. When I asked John if he knew why the moon looks so much larger on the horizon. He made it very logical. He said that it is overly plump from having absorbed all of the water while rising up from the Ocean and as it rises it drips the water out thus the reason it gets smaller (less plump) as it gets further into the sky!
I took the helm shortly after the sunset and our course took us directly up the moonbeam. For those of you that have never had the pleasure of sailing the moonbeam it is a great experience. The illusion is that you are travelling much faster than during the day time because of the way the moon light reflects off of the water. Last night’s sail was one of the best I have ever had. They had to pry me away from the helm after 2 hours, twice our standard helm time. The winds were blowing 8 to 12 knots and the boat was speeding along nicely at 6 plus knots with occasionally reaching 7. What made it so spectacular was the combination of the moonbeam, the illusion of more speed, and the smoothness of the seas. One advantage of coming off light winds for an extended period of time the seas haven’t had a chance to rebuild with the increased wind.
At 9:30 P.M. last night we crossed Longitude 130 W at 33 Degrees 26 minutes which is where I predicted yesterday afternoon but because of the increased winds we crossed it much sooner than I had guess. I didn’t think we would get there before this morning.
Day 6 5;30 P.M. (1513 Nautical Miles from Hawaii)
137 NM made good over last 24 Hours
The Children’s Hour just concluded and we are still holding strong in 3 place.
When I told friends and family that I was racing to Hawaii, typically the first question was; “How long will that take”. Having never raced to Hawaii I could only pass on what I had heard and typically for the type of boats in Avion class it takes between 12 to 14 days. To analyze this further the distance between San Francisco Bay and Kaneohe Bay is 2070 so in order to make those times we will have to average between 148 to 172 nautical miles per day. Through 8 am this morning we have averaged only 95 miles per day which keeping that average would take us over 21 days which is way past the deadline on the 25th of July. I think it would be good to show not only our progress to Hawaii but what has been the last 24 hour progress. So as I log the date and time I will include both the distance from Hawaii and the distance made good over the past 24 hours if I have a reading for that particular time 24 hours ago.
To start this new information base I have provided the following which chart of our24 hour period:
Start 1:40 A.M to Day 2 8:00 A.M. 50 NM
Day 2 8:00 A.M. to Day 3 88:00 A.M. 101 NM
Day 3 8:00 A.M. to Day 4 8:00 A.M. 164 NM
Day 4 8:00 A.M. to Day 5 8:00 A.M 91 NM
Day 6 10:00 P.M. (1478 NM from Hawaii)
I just came off my 4 hour watch and wanted to make a quick post before hitting the sack. Over the past 6 hours we have been averaging close to 8 knots with winds in the 15 to 20 knot range. So far I have come closest to the Rocket Club by surfing down a wave at 9.44 knots during my latest hour at the helm, a definite E Ticket Ride! I just heard down from the cockpit that Kent is a close second with a reported 9.20 knots. The Rocket Club if you are wondering, is the helmsman that drives the boat faster than 10 knots, I have seen it happen a few times. The fastest I have seen her go was a little over 13 knots surfing down a wave at Point Conception while racing to LA last summer. I have a good feeling that we will surpass that speed. The more we do the sooner we will be in Hawaii and the broader our smiles! We may just have a record day tomorrow.
12:20pm, Sun July 13
We just dropped down to the A3 (smaller asymetric spinnaker) as we have more consistent wind and need to carry it higher as we are changing to be heading more west, about 230M. Expect about 15 knots most of today. We seem to be out of the low wind for now. The weather files are predicting what we are seeing, so that is great. Today we spotted and hailed Coyote, just a bit behind us, they are in our division. Great to see and hear others out here.
Yesterday we turned a corner, in that we had sunny skies, a real sunset, and yet warmer conditions. I took a bath, which was great. We had a great celebration for Nico’s birthday last evening as well. It was great to have us all on deck together and enjoying being together on this adventure through time and space. We had a real sunrise today, and its now warm enough below deck that I am going to have to switch to shorts and short sleeves. At night it is only a shirt and foulie jacket for me, sandals, no more boots.
Soon after sunset last night the full moon started to rise out of the ocean, we had bright moonlight all night, still in the sky at dawn today. Nico saw a few birthday shooting stars as well.
The engine is running great, holding its oil now, charging the batteries at 48 amps right now. We do about 2 hours a day of charging. Dinner last night was mongolian beef stew. The broccoli casserole just came out of the freezer to thaw for tonight. For the first part of the trip we have preprepared dinners that are frozen on dry ice in a cooler. After that its freeze dried dinners, which will be good too. Kent did most of the dinners, some are from Tom’s favorite grocery catering service, Nico drove the gathering for the freeze dried end of the food. Water and fuel are plentiful, the boat is sailing great, and we are all having a great time.
Today was a special day. The sun came out and it warmed up considerably. We had a birthday on board, and we crossed the 130 degree W latitude line. As my more verbose crew might have already mentioned on this blog (I don’t know for sure, we don’t have internet access), today is Nico’s birthday. He is just 24 years old. He is our bow man, and brings constant energy and enthusiasm to the boat. He is constantly thinking about how to make the boat go faster. He is mature beyond his numerical age. I gave him a small bottle of Avion Tequilla, that we enjoyed during our first ocean sunset.
David showered showered with buckets of salt water and inspired me to do the same. Shortly after we crossed the 130 Latitude line and finally entered into the deep pacific, the winds picked-up to 10 knots and we got a boat speed averaging around 7 knots. After a day of relatively light winds, this was welcome. As sailors, we got excited by this increase in boat speed. We had much less wind during the day, and what we had was shifty, but we paid attention and made the most of every puff of wind (often lasting 3 to 5 minutes before dying out).
We flew the new S2 today, but it was too soon to hold the desired course, so we changed to A1.5. Avion is a unique boat in many ways, but especially in our sail plan. We carry both symmetrical and asymmetrical spinnakers. This gives us maximum flexibility in taking advantage of the wind. Most boats are designed for one or the other type of spinnaker, so this is a competitive advantage. Avion is a solid, medium displacement boat, so she is not the fastest boat in this race. But she has the advantage of being very stable in the water, and comfortable below, and stioll realtively fast. Someone recently said she was “cigar shaped”, in reference to being long and narrow. She has a deep keel and a blade of a mast, so is fast and stable, a good combination for a long ocean race.
The boat feels good. Crew have settled in and know where everything is. We are doing shift changes in 5 minutes versus 15-20 minutes a few days ago. There were no new issues or repairs today. We have plenty of food, water and fuel, although I think the cooler ice will only last another 24 hours. This race will take longer than the 12-14 days we planned for, but we should be able to adjust and handle it.
We only have email and text messaging access over the Iridium phone. I wanted to get data transfer functional as well, but it is just not happening. We have all adjusted to email as our means of communication, as it is working and reliable. I download GRIB files of the Eastern Pacific twice a day for navigation planning. The latest GRIBS suggest we will find some 15 knot winds to our south tomorrow, so we are heading that way.
More to come…Tom
July 12 2014 aka watch rotation # 25
Well just as we thought the wind was going to fill in it seem that the fickle wind gods and the ever changing Pacific High have decided otherwise. We are currently cruising at about 4 knots in about 5 knots of wind sigh. Every now and then a cloud with some wind comes through and things get exciting with anything form 8 – 17 knots of wind comes through and we all get hopeful that finally we will have some wind to bring us to the trade winds (typically moderately strong warm winds that are very consistent) and the sunshine. However, these clouds are short lived and we are back to sailing in light variable winds 2- 6 knots. Today we finally got to put a spinnaker back up and it seem to be holding steady. Until now we have been sailing with the jib topper mostly with a few attempts to fly a spinnaker that were short lived due either to a lack of wind to keep it full or clouds with too much wind. I have taken up a trick I learned from my sister and her friends at a party where they kept track of how many drinks they had by keeping a sharpie tally on their fore arms. I am doing the same thing except with headsail changes and I currently have 11 tally marks on my right forearm. There has been a bit of excitement when we went to check the oil last night and found a quart of oil in the bilge. The leak was resolved after a few hours of the boat being torn apart and we were very thankful for the light winds for at least the period of time we working on the engine. We are anxiously watching the weather hoping for some wind as of the latest forecast it looks like we will get some good wind by Monday. That is good news as at this rate we are in it for another 12 days, which was our prediction for the entire race. Final note the crew on Avion decided to celebrate my birthday in style! The got out saucicon cheese and crackers. Also they gave me for my birthday gift a bottle tequila by the name of Avion! Which of course we promptly polished off! All of this followed by the first really visible sunset and the most gorgeous moon rise I have ever seen
Le 12 Juillet 2012 ou plutot quart # 25
Just aux moment ou on croxais que le vent etait en train de se etablir les dieux du vent on decider autrement. A ce moment on avance a 4 knoeuds avec 5 knoeuds de vent. De temps en temps un nuage nous amenne du vent entre 8 et 17 knoeuds ety tout l’equippage espere que ca contunuira qusque aux vent de commerce (typicquement dees vent chaud et consistent) et le soleil. Malherusement, ca ne dur pas et on et rendu a essayer de fair avance Avion aux plus vite dans 2-6 knoeuds de vent. Aujourdhui on a finalment mis le spi et ils semble que ca va durer. Jusqque a present on avais le ” Jib Topper” malgrais deux essais a mettres un spi qu il non pas durer longtemps. A ce mment J’ai arde compte des changement de voiles en feutre sur mon bras droit. Heir on a eu un des avantures avec le motor qui c’est mis fuir de l’huile. On a trouver un litre d’huile sous le plancher du bateaux. On a reparer la fuite apr quelques heurs out on avias tout demonter dans le bateaux. Aux moins pendent ces quelques heurs on etait bien content des vents faibles… On regarde constament la meteo et ils semblerais que le vent vas monter lundi ce qui est bien, comme a c’ette allure on n’arrive pas avant 12 jours, ce que on pensais fair pour la course entire. Finalment ce soir l’equipage de avion on decide de me faire une petite surprise pour mon anniversair!ils on sortie un saucicon de fromage et des crackers. Et comme cadeaux ils m’ont offert une bouteille de tequila qui s’aappelle Avion quue, bien sur on a vite finis! Tout ca suivi pars le premier coucheer de soleil que on a puet vraiment voir et le plus beaux lever de lune que je n’ais jamais veux!
Day 5
Nico’s Birthday
Day 5 6:00 A.M. (1677 Nautical Miles from Hawaii)
When Nico came on watch this morning at midnight I heard Tom wish him a happy birthday. This great young man just turned 24 today and I am happy and proud to call him my friend; Happy Birthday Nico! Skipper Tom has something planned for us later in the day so I’m looking forward to the fun.
Tom and I got our watch schedule a little out of whack just as my body was getting used to the routine. I guess it is good to keep it guessing! Through the course of the day the wind steadily decrease, so much for the short lived vengeance of yesterday. We are not in the doldrums as before but less than 5 knots of wind isn’t that much fun. What happened to the “Fun” in the Fun Race to Hawaii. Based on the Children’s Hour yesterday afternoon we are not the only frustrated boat out here. Personally I am amazed at Avion crew’s temperament; it speaks well to their character and it is having a great impact on my goal of improving my patience; yes Lindi, you should be pleased!
As to why our schedule got out of sync? Tom was up 10 straight hours working on an engine issue. We have been running the engine a little over an hour a day, without it in gear of course, to charge the batteries. With the constant overcast skies the solar panel has not been able to stay up with the load. David decided to fix the navigation seat that sits right in front of the engine cover. He removed the engine cover to get a better look at the receiver hole and decided to check the oil while he had the cover was off and saw a big puddle of oil in the oil pan under the engine. This was not a good sign, besides be problematic for the engine we also have a limited supply of oil. The engine hasn’t had a history of oil consumption and oil was the last thing on Tom’s shopping list the morning of the start. There were only two quarts of diesel oil on the shelf, he wasn’t worried and was running late so he didn’t want to take the time for them to look more. Upon checking the engine oil after less than 5 hours of runtime David discovered it to be one quart low, leaving us now with only one quart. It now became essential that we figure out the cause of the leak. Dave and Tom stripped down to their shorts to perform the dirty job of cleaning up the oil and figuring where was the leak. They were able to determine that the leak came from the connection for the new oil hoses we just installed based on the recommendation of the diesel mechanic that checked out the engine a weak ago. Unfortunately the hose kit we purchased did not come with new copper washer seals so we reused the old ones. Turned out that wasn’t a good decision because they were torqued out of shape and were unable to hold a new seal. Not to worry, resourceful David had two plans. First he had purchased a set of copper washers of variable diameters for this type of purpose. Unfortunately, one of the fittings had a diameter that had no matching washer so he improvised. He cut out aluminum washers from the casserole pan Kent used for the delicious dinner we had last night. This option turned out to be unnecessary because one of the slightly larger copper washers seemed to hold the seal just fine. When the engine was fired up we all were happy when David and Tom reported no leaks found. After Tom cleaned up he was exhausted so I told him I could stay on watch a little longer for him to get some sleep, as a result we are now 2 hours different in our rotation and my body seemed to adjust just fine.
Day 5 8:00 A.M (1674 Nautical Miles from Hawaii)
As you can see from our progress since 6 A.M. we have only traveled an additional 3 nautical miles closer to Hawaii for the past 2 hours, comparable to a very slow stroll. In sailing terms this is known as distance made good, or in our case distance made not so good! We may well have traveled further than 3 miles in those 2 hours but we were only able to get 3 miles closer to Hawaii. Typically vessels that are dependent on wind cannot travel directly to its destination known as the rhumb line (not the Mount Gay type) or great circle route (so named due to the curvature of the earth). So let’s take a few minutes to talk about navigation. If you remember back when I discuss the 5 races within the Pacific Cup Race, we are currently in race number 2. The first race was getting out of the San Francisco Bay and the thermal effect of the temperature differentiation between the Central and Southern Valleys and the Pacific Ocean. We are now trying to get over the Pacific High Pressure Ridge so we can get that sling shot ride to the Trades. Unfortunately the Pacific High has filled stronger than we would like which is the result of the light winds and slow progress.
During one of the many seminars we attended in preparation for this race it was suggested that the boat that crosses longitude 130 West at the proper Latitude will win the race. The big question is what that “proper latitude” is. We are currently less than 30 miles from that Longitude with our current lat/long position of 34 Degrees 00 Minutes North by 129 Degrees 30 Minutes West. Just like a clock there is 60 minutes in a degree and for latitudes a minute is 1 nautical mile, however, for longitudes a minute is 1 nautical mile only at the equator. Without getting too technical think of longitudes lines running around the earth parallel to the equator and as they get closer to either poles they become smaller in length but have the same number of degrees and minutes. As a result the length of a longitudinal minute at latitude 34 is less than one mile but don’t ask me to verify what that distance is. So with us only being less than 30 nautical miles away from Longitude 130 W we are looking at crossing it somewhere north of Latitude 33 North hopefully tomorrow. Only time will tell how effective that decision will pan out for Avion and her crew.
Day 5 5:30 P.M. (1650 miles from Hawaii)
We are averaging a little better the remainder of the day than we were during the early morning hours, but not by much. We only averaged 2 nautical miles per hour and for us to get to Hawaii to have some time to enjoy the festivities that number has to rise to an average of 6 miles an hour. Hopefully the pressure gradients will start to compress causing stronger winds and the trade winds fill in soon or we may be out here for a while. Oh well, I can think of a lot worst places to be. The water is warm, the sun is starting to peek through the clouds, the temperature is steadily raising and the water is a beautiful gun barrel blue. Having just listened to the Children’ss Hour on the SSB we are being consistent from the boats progress reports; we have placed third in the 24 hour distance made good category in our fleet for the past 4 days. We are happy with those results but are striving to do better. The good news is that we are currently sailing close to 6 knots in only 8 knots of wind so it looks like all we need is at least 8 knots of wind between here and Hawaii and we can enjoy the house we rented for the week of our arrival on Kaneohe Bay, but now we need to celebrate Nico’s birthday.
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Day 4
Getting Into the Routine of Things
Day 4 6:00 A.M. (1765 Miles to Hawaii)
I’m not sure if my body has gotten used to this 4 hours on 4 hours off rotation or has simply given in to what it realizes as an inevitability. I awoke in a great mood and immediately started telling stories to Kent and David, my two watch mates. I explained to Kent that he had accidentally found himself last night in the middle of the only excitement of the night, he vaguely remembered something happening when he went to use the head in the middle of his rest period. Awe, an opportunity to embellish a story!
After coming on watch at 100 P.M. the winds were decreasing from 15 knots fluctuating around 10 knots. We were still in a broad reach running the jib topper. The sky is still overcast with an occasional large dark cloud kicking up some turbulence so every now and then the winds would gust up to 18 to 20 knots. In the dark it was hard to tell which cloud was a thin lower level cloud and which were the larger cumulous with weather generating capacity. Kent had gone down replaced by Nico and was in the process of embellishing his own story about a family every 4th of July that was learning how to sink a kit sailboat and year after year he would come to his rescue. In the middle of the story I asked if he would like to relieve me at the helm since I had been driving for close to 1 hours and was getting a little bug eyed trying to concentrate on the compass reading and wind direction to maximize boat speed. Nico said that he was just about ready to go change out the jib top with the A 1 /2 (our largest asymmetrical spinnaker). The reason for the suggested change was because during Nico’s entire story the wind was consistently blowing around 7.5 knots causing the jib topper to flog more than we would like (a flogging sail is a slow sail). Again the process is to raise the spinnaker then douse the jib top. The jib top is a very large sail requiring two people foredeck to secure it. Luckily we had an extra hand with John on deck so he went forward to help Nico while Dave controlled the lines and I attempted to keep the boat under control. Why would that be a problem with only 7.5 knots of wind?
Unfortunately this proved to be a major challenge because just as the spinnaker went up the wind increased to 20 knots due to one of those unseen cumulus clouds. This sail is rated for no more than 12 knots; obviously we were way over powered by a significant amount. When a boat is over powered its normal behavior is to round up and with that much sail area (remember the largest sail package we could have at the time) she tends to heal significantly. While Nico and John were struggling to secure the large flapping sail coming down onto the deck they kept yelling for me to turn further down wind to keep the boat from healing so much. This becomes a challenge for the helmsman because to do that he needs helm relief because the boat is wanting to go in the opposite direction and is fighting the helm like a spoiled child making a fuss for not getting his way. I was finally able to turn down wind, east of south, not the direction to Hawaii which is significantly west of south. Nico came back to the cockpit and looked over the situation and suggested strongly that we should immediately take down the spinnaker and put the jip top back up, he received no arguments from the crew. Again Nico review the same plan as the night before for this particular head sail change but I couldn’t do the squirrel job because I was at the helm. In the meantime, unbeknown to us, Kent was woken by the flogging of the sails and listing of the boat so he thought it would be a good opportunity to go to the head to relieve himself. So as John ran forward to squirrel the spinnaker he had to go through the head to get to the peak of the boat to pull it into the boat. Unfortunately for Kent he discovered first hand that there isn’t much privacy on a race boat while in the middle of a race; certain things have priority, Mother Nature calling has to take a second fiddle to cumulus clouds exerting their authority! As soon as Nico came back to the cockpit he picked up his story right where he left off as if nothing happened.
Day 4 6:00 A.M. (1755 Miles from Hawaii)
Since I was on watch and Tom was in the bunk I told him that I would handle reporting our positions to the race committee. This is an important task because not doing so can result in a 1 hour time penalty added to your elapsed time and many races are won and lost with less than an hour differential. I reported the position via email and then verified it again during the roll call at 9:30 A.M. One of the boats in the race gets all of the boats positions and then reports the location of every boat with a verification from those boats having a SSB radio and are on frequency. I wrote down every boats position and from what we can tell there is one boat in our fleet that is definitely ahead of us but we are not sure about the others. We will find out at the children’s hour later this afternoon.
avionbianca 