Day 12 Report
14 August 2017 | Pacific Ocean - 711 Miles from San Francisco
Kirk Denebeim
Making steady progress as the miles keep ticking away. We sail under a double reefed main and our 85% jib, a conservative yet comfortable sail plan that keeps the boat from feeling it's "on the edge" all the time. We have a nice wind direction coming at our port beam, so we've decided to deviate north away from the rhomb line course to SF while we can do so easily, because we see strong ( 20 kts +) breeze coming at us tomorrow from a much less favorable angle, so we'll have "put some in the bank" when that happens, and be able to steer at a more comfortable angle, aimed at the right direction. OK- that's enough navigation talk.
Life on board continues in its routine rhythm of three hours on, six hours off for each person- a really nice, easy work schedule. We will switch our watches on board to west coast time when we're 500 miles from SF. We definitely notice the odd hours of sunrise and sunset at the moment, so the time change will feel more natural. One of the other of the last Transpac boats to leave Hawaii, Sequoia, departed 3 d.ays ahead of us, headed toward Berkeley. We've been in daily contact with them, and their routing has turned into a near disaster. I am not sure how it happened, but let's say they are somewhere 600 miles west of the Channel Islands, trying to reach Los Angeles to reprovision their boat! We are once again very fortunate that we had the best people guiding us in our route planning, and looking at our track, I am extremely happy with how this is working out. In a few more days, we'll start to "smell the barn." And no- it does NOT smell like a barn on our boat! We keep things clean and shipshape, and the guys are taking good care of themselves- no funkiness on this sailboat! Time for me to stand my watch- my little "3 hour tour!"