fetchinketch

Time: 08:20 local
Lat: 36 30
Log: 136 15
Distance from Hawaii: 1450
Distance to Golden Gate: 663.0
27 hour distance made good: 125.2 nautical miles

I am now officially listed as the autopilot jinx. No question.

Today’s report was supposed to be about how we made the transition from electronic autopilot to wind vane without a hitch, how after a couple hours tuning and tweaking I had “Wendy” doing a bang-up job. It was supposed to be about how we now have a straight run in to the Golden Gate, with steady winds forecast.

All that is true.

The only catch is that after about 18 hours of steering along happily, Wendy spontaneously disassembled herself and dropped her paddle into the deep. To prevent this being a disaster, I keep a safety line attached to the paddle. It came apart BELOW the attachment point for the safety line. Sigh. No paddle, no self steering.

So we are now treated to the Adventure of continuous hand steering into San Francisco. Most of the way we expect to be on a beam reach or broad reach, so more or less constant attention to the wheel will be needed. Fortunately a good attitude will prevent this from being too much of an ordeal!

Time: 6:35 local (we changed time zones again yesterday, this is a 23 hour day) Lat: 35 48
Log: 138 41
Distance from Hawaii: 1329
Distance to Golden Gate: 787
23 hour distance made good: 112.6 nautical miles

Moments after I sent yesterday’s report about all being well we had the most significant mechanical failure of the trip. The pump shaft seal failed in the hydraulic autopilot drive. Have to check on its warranty status, it’s only 6 months old!

Of course it took an hour or so to figure out what had gone wrong, and another two hours to fully rig up “Wendy” the wind vane. All the while Tom is getting some undesired experience in hand steering a big boat downwind in big waves. He did a great job, and now Wendy has taken over. We can’t push quite as fast, or run as straight a line with Wendy, but she did fine all day in difficult conditions.

We as now on a beam reach in 17 to 20 knot winds making good time. Wind and waves are settling down, and it is a much more comfortable ride now. Hope to have seen the last of 30+ knot winds for at least a few hours, I put up some more sail to keep our speed up.

Still looks like the 28th or 29th will find us under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Time: 6:18 local
Lat: 35 20
Log: 140 55
Distance from Hawaii: 1226
Distance to Golden Gate: 899
24 hour distance made good: 126.4 nautical miles

A short note today, it has been a long tiring night. The weather service added a new note to the weather map near our position, it says GALE. And I can confirm that we spent most of the night in winds of 35-40 knots. Fortunately running downwind, with only a little scrap of jib pulling up along so not as bad as it could be. Still, 40 knots is not fun.

So, we gybed and headed south where the winds are forecast to be lighter. Just a few miles seems to have made a huge difference.

Other than being tired the crew is fine, and the boat is as she was, working well.

Time: 6:18 local
Lat: 34 10
Log: 143 02
Distance from Hawaii: 1101
Distance to Golden Gate: 1021
24 hour distance made good: 110.9 nautical miles

All the wind models agree that in three days a high pressure system will be moving in from the southwest toward our track to San Francisco Bay. If they are right, and we stayed on that track we would sail straight into a day or more of no wind. So we are following their advice, and taking a slightly more northerly route, hopefully that will keep us in the wind.

As forecast the wind has veered all the way to the southwest as the next front approaches. The downwind run that gives us is now delightful. The ocean is almost flat, the boat now has a slow gentle rocking motion. The wind has just picked up to about 15 knots giving us a smooth comfortable ride.

Time: 6:25 local
Lat: 33 20
Log: 145 02
Distance from Hawaii: 994
Distance to Golden Gate: 1130
24 hour distance made good: 129.8 nautical miles

A delightful and comfortable day sailing. Someone could, if they wanted, complain about it being too cold, or not sunny enough, or the wind being a bit shifty sometimes, but with a nice comfortable beam reach in 15 to 20 knots, you won’t hear anybody on this boat whining! Especially since we ended up another 130 miles closer to San Francisco.

That last nasty low pressure system has now run well ahead of us, and the high that we were worried about stealing our winds is dissipating behind us. We have another day or so before the front edge of the next low arrives. It will pick our winds up again, but this time they will be from the west, making a much easier downwind run straight towards the Golden Gate.

Before we left, I told everyone who asked that a 21 day crossing would be very fast in this boat, and 28 would be very slow. It is looking like we will be very close to the fast time. If we can keep our recent pace up, we’ll be making landfall on the 29th.

Time: 6:10 local (we are now 1 hour ahead of Hawaii time)
Lat: 32 49
Log: 147 33
Distance from Hawaii: 884
Distance to Golden Gate: 1259
24 hour distance made good: 125.3 nautical miles

A few minor mechanical issues taken care of today. On the mainsail several of the luff slides had chafed through their attachment to the sail. Tom and I spent a fair amount of time on deck lashing them back together getting drenched as the boat charged along under jib and mizzen. While working at the mast, we discovered that the gate in the luff track on the mast had broken. This does not affect the boat’s sailing abilities at all, but it does make setting, furling or reefing the mainsail a very fussy two man job until I figure out a fix.

Other things pretty much just routine tightening of things that shake themselves loose. A lot of time in my day is taken up by just moving around the boat looking at things, looking for any little change I can catch before it gets to be a big problem.

Editors Note: As usual, I started the draft of my daily blog posting in the evening. Then complete it once I am settled in on my morning watch. During my midnight to 2AM watch, the jib furling line chafed through and broke. Annoying this, because it was something I had been watching for! We are rigged up with a functional replacement, although not a pretty one!

On the weather front, finally the models are making predictions that are coming true. The winds have backed more westerly and eased off to 15 – 20 knots. Enough to make the boat move right along, without making lots of extra work!

Time: 0620 local
Lat: 32 51
Log: 150 01
Distance from Hawaii: 814
Distance to Golden Gate: 1385
24 hour distance made good: 132.1 nautical miles

All four independent weather models agree on the kind of winds we should have been experiencing for the last two days: 10-15 knots from the northwest. Well, they were close on the northwest part…

For the second straight day we are looking at winds that actually run 25-35 knots with the occasional fun run up to 40. Right now as I write this the true wind speed reading is 37.5 knots. Nothing boat or crew can’t take, but it is tiring. Going this fast into these waves gives the boat a quick, unpredictable motion that requires a handhold at all times above and below decks.

We have up about half the jib, and a triple reefed main and are making 6 to 7 knots. When I ordered the new main sail I debated its I should get the third reef or not, wondering how often I would actually use it. The answer: A lot!

I can’t wait to see what today’s run of the weather models has to say!

Time: 0615 local
Lat: 32 38
Log: 152 38
Distance from Hawaii: 737
Distance to Golden Gate: 1503
24 hour distance made good: 110.4 nautical miles

First the good news: Drifting around in light winds is over, at least for now. The boat and crew are doing well. We are headed back directly on the great circle route to San Francisco like a horse home to the barn, making speeds of 6 to 7 knots.

Now the other news: For the last 14 hours we have been on a tight close reach in 30 knots of wind into seas of 6 feet every 5 seconds. It is cold (50F) and cloudy. It is safe to say we are out of the tropics! The boat regularly takes green water over the bow, most of which doesn’t reach the cockpit.

The weather model are real no help in forecasting when conditions might moderate, because none of the four models predict a wind of greater than 15 knots!

In other news, for most of yesterday afternoon we were entertained by a Bryard’s whale who seemed captivated by the boat as we moved along at 3 knots in calm seas. Not huge as whales go, maybe 30 or 40 feet, he (she?) still made an intimidating playmate when he’d surface as close as 50 feet away. He would circle the boat, dive and disappear for a few minutes, surface, come back to the boat, over and over.

Time: 0630 local
Lat: 32 02
Log: 154 30
Distance from Hawaii: 671
Distance to Golden Gate: 1605
24 hour distance made good: 87 nautical miles

Yesterday’s morning weather forecast reflected a bit of wishful thinking. Instead of a wind shift to the northwest we spent much of the day sitting waiting for wind, making it our slowest 24 hours yet. Despite that, we still managed a run of 87 miles.

Rather than issue a definite forecast for wind today, I’ll just say, “I hope for a change…”

The two most exciting events for the day:

1: Contacting the cargo ship that was 10 miles away and asking him to change course to avoid running us down while we were barely moving. He did so. The ocean isn’t so big that two ships can’t occupy the same spot at the same time, and since he out weighs us by 10,000 times, he’d win that argument. My general rule is to do something to avoid a ship if the computer reports a closest point of approach of 1 mile or less. In this case it was reporting a CPA of 1.1 FEET before he turned.

2: After I settled in for my 00:00 to 02:00 watch, I heard a whale go by in the dark. Several deep, almost explosive, exchanges of air as a huge animal takes a deep breath. Very eerie in the dark.

Everybody and everything continue to get along well. If you know a good wind dance, now would be the time to do it to spare us the frustration of another day of bobbing.

Time: 0620 local
Lat: 30 59
Log: 155 41
Distance from Hawaii: 595
Distance to Golden Gate: 1684
24 hour distance made good: 130.1 nautical miles

The wind has slowed to about 8 knots overnight, and become a bit “fussy” in direction. But the boat is still moving along in the direction we want at over 5 knots. We have had day after day of clear blue skies with only isolated white puffy cumulus clouds. At sunrise this morning I am greeted by a sold wall of gray off to the west. It is the cold front we have been waiting for. Behind it the wind veers, and we finally get to point directly at our destination, carried along by the west winds that flow toward the coast north of the tradewind belt.

This means that according to standard wisdom, we are coming to the end of the most difficult part of our trip, the beat into the trades. I am pretty sure I don’t believe that…

For what it is worth, the weather routing software predicts we will be under the Golden Gate Bridge in 11 to 13 days.

And a random thought: Do things ever tighten themselves? Or do they only ever get looser? My standard line is that when things go wrong, they always go wrong at 2AM. Well last night I would have been wrong it was 03:20. Tom was on watch, and the boat suddenly heads up into the wind and stops. I am awake right away. I hear the boat come back up to speed, and sail away again. But, something is wrong. No noise from the autopilot. Tom has the boat back on course by hand, and the autopilot is not responding.

Always try the easiest thing first, switch everything off and back on again. No luck. A quick visual check shows the right lights on indicating power is getting to where it needs to be. Opening an access panel shows the problem. The hydraulic ram has unscrewed itself from the eye that connects it to the rudder quadrant. Two minutes with a wrench and we’re back off and running. Hopefully today I can find some Locktite and prevent that from occurring again.