08/09/2011
The 14 knot trade winds propel us briskly at 7.5 knots toward the north west and our destination of Hawaii. The seas are smooth: 2m swell and 1m wind waves. The moon shines down upon us kindly.
This is beautiful, glorious sailing. What we all wish we would have all the time.
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08/08/2011
We have finally gotten to the Northern Trade Winds, the consistent 15 knot winds from the North East that will carry us on a beam reach all the way to Hawaii. Hopefully our days of motoring in light air are over.
We're making good time now, doing 7 knots with the full jib and the full (repaired) mainsail. It's sunny with patchy clouds and the seas are relatively flat, so it's pleasant sailing for now.
We keep the radar going to watch out for squalls in the area, however, since they can bring strong downdraft winds up to 40 knots.
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08/07/2011
Date/Time: Aug 7 1100 HST Posit: 11 16.85'N , 142 08.51'W Wind: N 4 Wind wv: 0 Swell wv:
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08/07/2011
With just 50 liters of diesel fuel left in our main tank, we finally found the northern trade winds which will carry us to Hawaii. The coordinates for the turning point were 10 N 142 W. We probably won't need the engine much until we get to our destination. It is wonderful to be again propelled by the wind, rather than a noisy diesel engine.
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There's an article and a couple photos of us in the Aug. 3 edition of 'Lectronic Latitude, the online version of the West Coast sailing magazine Latitude 38. Here's the link:
Your text to link...
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08/06/2011, the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone
We are still in the ITCZ, where we have very light winds, less than 10 knots, interspersed with squalls with 20 knots of wind and rain. We are sailing to the north-east in order to get the best sailing angle for our final leg to Hawaii. We should finally get to the northern Trade Winds sometime tomorrow. When that happens, we'll make a 90 degree left turn to the north west, destination Hawaii.
The repaired mainsail is working great, and it is helping us with our speed in these light winds.
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08/04/2011
Winds were light enough for us to take the ripped mainsail down today and begin repairs. Getting the sail down was no small task; it required Daniel going aloft in the bosun's chair to pull the shreds of torn sail out of top of the mast so that it would unfurl. Daniel stalwartly hung on as the mast swung back and forth with the ocean swells.
Once we got the mainsail down to the deck we began the task of repairing the 2 foot long horizontal rip in the sail. The leech (trailing edge) of the sail was completely severed, and as this part of the sail carries the entire load, it was necessary to reinforce it. To do this we sewed 2 feet of nylon webbing along the leech on both sides of the fabric, one foot of nylon webbing above and below the tear.
Next came the repair of the tear itself, which actually was along a seam, so the seam merely had to be restitched. We got about 75 percent of that done, when a squall arrived with high winds so we had to tie the sail to the boom and wait until sometime tomorrow to finish the job.
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08/04/2011
Today marks our 11th day, we have sailed 1505 nautical miles since Moorea. We are still in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, a.k.a. the Doldrums, which has been marked by flat calm interspersed with frequent squalls and rain showers. We are sailing north eastward as much as the wind and current will allow in order to have the best possible sailing angle across the north-east trades to Hawaii.
We are still sailing with the jib only. The mainsail needs to be removed to repair it, but to do so requires a crew member to go up the mast in a bosun's chair to help unfurl it. We are waiting for one of those Doldrum flat calm seas before undertaking that task. Nevertheless, the boat sails very well with only the jib. At the moment we have 17 knots of wind and the boat is sailing at 6.5 knots. With the mainsail we might gain another knot of boat speed, but that's not critical.
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