Hello once again from a boiling hot, sunny North Pacific. (I’m practising the theory that if you pretend and convince yourself it’s warm, it’ll be warm… I’ll let you know how it goes).
If you’ve been watching the tracker, I am sure that you’ll have been watching with great interest the north v south battle. Well for us it is clear that we have lost this particular episode. A few days ago, we had to make a decision go up or go down. At the time it felt like an easy decision, and after a small wobble shorty after we thought no no, this is right. Back then we were still getting differences between forecasts, so taking the shortest route felt right. We anticipated as we tootled north the wind would veer and we could get east. We always knew when the southerners found their southerlies they’d speed along but thought the extra miles they’d have to cover would keep us equal. Well, we were wrong, the wind never veered like we thought, and the bottom pack started moving at quite a lick with 100% VMG.
In the end yesterday we slapped in a tack and had a morning going south. Our reasoning for this was firstly we were starting to get nervous we’d end up too far north before the illusive veer appeared, meaning we’d just have to continue close to the wind instead of the magic reaching we were dreaming of. Secondly, for reasons I just don’t know our fellow northerners were just constantly getting better speeds. I’m unsure if it was a good decision but when you have boats sail away from you in literally every direction, some action felt needed.
We aimed for a lighter patch that had more southerly breeze that we could potentially fly a kite in and finally stop seeing the boat speed at 8 knots and see the boat speed at 10/11 knots. Very happily we found it last night, and after waiting an hour or so for the sea to calm we hoisted the kite. Instantly our speed went up and I though “ahh how I’ve missed kites”. What a terrible thought, five minutes later the halyard snapped, lucky I am a big advocate for using both spinnaker halyards for this exact reason, and the second halyard fortunately caught the kite. We quickly repaired the halyard, hoisted the AQP, halyard in hand, and reattached it to the Code 3. Hooray. We then enjoyed a couple more hours of speedy sailing until the wind shot up very quickly. It caused a couple of round ups, nothing major but the Code 3 decided it had been flogged one to many times, and for the first time in this circumnavigation, we ripped it. Quickly we got it down. Triage is yet to be done but fingers crossed it’s repairable at sea.
Making these tough routing decisions are all part of the job, but at times like this they can feel like quite a weight. If you get them right, you’re a genius, get them wrong and you can’t help but feeling a little daft. But I suppose that is the fun of ocean sailing, you can only plan, be confident in your plan and hope that Mother Nature is on your side. We’re not even halfway across this ocean so there will be plenty more opportunities to get it right. In fact, as I type a big fat tropical storm is forming over Hawaii that will certainly require a decision or two.
Lots of love to all my family at home
Hannah, Ella and the Washington, DC Crew
PS Cold theory update – I think it works you know. Earlier I helmed for an hour without gloves and my hands are still attached to my body.