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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