08/14/2011, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
We've completed our passage from Tahiti to Hawaii. Here are the stats:
Days at Sea: 21 (July 24 to August 14, 2011)
Distance Logged: 2,706 nautical miles (3114 miles; 5011 km)
Average distance per day: 129 nautical miles/day
Engine Hours: 92 (mostly in the Equatorial ITCZ)
Maximum recorded speed: 8.9 knots
Maximum recorded wind: 40 knots
Our Days at Sea would have been better were it not for a torn mainsail which took a week to get down and repair and a jib halyard failure 2 days before arrival. We spent 9 days of the passage sailing with just one sail.
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Comments [1]
Lynn
Morro Bay
08/14/2011, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Yesterday evening, as the sun set, we could see the dome like outline of the Big Island's volcano on the horizon. As we got closer, we could see what appeared to be city lights on the slope of the island. Consulting with the charts, however, we could see that there is no large city on the south east end of the island. The luminous glow was not city lights, but rather a huge field of lava flowing down the volcano to the sea.
We celebrated our sighting land with a bottle of fine French champagne (a gift of Didier in Papeete), along with foie gras served on freshly baked bread that I had made for the occasion, and also caviar on buttered toast.
It would be some time longer before we made landfall, however. The Big Island is very big, indeed. It would be another four hours after sighting land before we would approach the southern tip of the island, and another 8 hours of sailing northward along the west side of the island to Honokohau Harbor.
As we approached the island, the winds increased to 30 knots and the seas turned into the huge waves that Hawaii is famous for. Our boat surfed down mountainous swells that followed us on our course towards the north west. One rogue wave came upon us on our side and hit us so strongly that it sent everything that wasn't nailed down flying.
We sailed through the night and arrived at the harbor entrance at about 9:30 a.m.
Once in the harbor, we took a mooring ball and stern tied, Med-moor style, to the quay. We clambered from the stern onto dry land and walked unsteadily on this unfamiliar terra firma.
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08/13/2011
Our first sight of land in 21 days as we approach the Big Island of Hawaii.
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08/13/2011
We are just 75 miles from Hawaii on our 20th day at sea. We made 124 miles in the last 24 hours; not bad considering it was with the mainsail only. I am baking bread to serve with our celebratory feast upon first sight of land, probably in the late afternoon. We have had very pleasant sailing conditions today, with 15 knots of wind from the rear quarter, and a 2m swell to remind us that we are at sea.
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08/12/2011
This is our 19th day at sea. Last night, just as we were finishing dinner, I noticed that the jib was hanging down over the side of the bow and into the water. The jib halyard had chafed completely through at the mast head and parted (see photo inset). Daniel and I dropped the jib to the deck and lashed it down.
This morning we planned to use the spare halyard to hoist the jib, but this was not to be. The spare halyard was used to hoist a spinnaker net (a device to prevent the spinnaker from wrapping around the forestay). But the spinnaker net had also chafed through and parted, so we could not get the spare halyard down from the masthead.
The next option was to use the spinnaker halyard. But the ruined spinnaker net had wrapped itself around this halyard, making this also impossible to use. The remnants of the spinnaker net were jamming up the block at the top of the mast.
Normally we would send one of us up to the masthead in a bosun's chair to untangle all this, but with the ocean swell this would be a very unpleasant task, and, since we're just a few hundred miles from Hawaii, we decided to continue on with just the mainsail. With the 15 knot winds we're able to make 5 to 6 knots of boat speed which is good enough to get us there in about 2 days.
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08/11/2011, Pacific Ocean en route from Moorea to Hawaii
I spent the night watch dodging squalls, but this morning and afternoon we have had clear blue skies and fair winds. We covered 140 nautical miles in the last 24 hours. It has been 18 days since we left Moorea. With some 360 miles to go, we should make our arrival in another few days. The sea conditions are comfortable and the 14 knot trade winds push us along gently.
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08/10/2011, Pacific Ocean en route from Tahiti to Hawaii
We sailed into a beautiful sunset this evening...
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08/10/2011
We celebrated crew member Daniel's birthday today with a feast. Crab chips from Thailand, followed by foie gras on toast with a bottle of French white wine, and dinner was grilled filet mignon steaks with bearnaise sauce and steamed potatoes, and dessert was vanilla and chocolate pudding parfaits.
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