Traveling to Guam
20 February 2009 | North Pacific
Randy
It has been a snappy passage so far. We have had 20 knots of wind on the beam for most of the trip with an excursion to 15 or 25 here and there. We double reefed the main and jib at the outset because things were really choppy in the Namonuito Lagoon and looking unstable upstairs. The shy has had a thin to thick alto level haze but the pressure has been a rock and the conditions have been very stable. The swell is a little big and mixed so there's some thumping but we're doing over 9 knots average with the main still double reefed and the jib all the way out.
The jib is easy to put away and still gives us lots of drive on the beam or a tad down wind. The main is a lot more difficult to reef, especially at night. We'd rather not head up into the 3 meter seas if we can avoid it.
The jack that connects the sail bag to the mast broke today at some point. Not sure how but I tied a connector in place until we stop bouncing around.
Our genset has been running solid since the heat exchanger replacement in Gizo. Out boat runs itself during the day time thanks to the solor panels. At night we go pretty negative. Running lights, running the radar every time we make a log entry (every half hour) and most of all the auto pilot. In big beamy or quartering seas the AP works pretty hard. It can easily draw 15-25 amps instantaneously and sucks down a good 5-10 most of the time. We take the batteries down to about 20% of their amp hour rating and then charge back up with the genset. It takes the Xantrex MS2000 100 amp charger about three hours to top everything up completely but you can get lots of run time after just an hour or two.
We're looking at a sunset arrival into Apra harbor tomorrow. Not optimal arriving at a new harbor after dark but given the nav aids shown on the chart for this US port I'm fairly confident it will be a no brainer. Things are forecast to deteriorate out here after tomorrow so we galloping along.
209 miles to Guam