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.
avionbianca 