Captains blog: Demands not requests

Date: July 7, 2022

Time: 15:32

Location:32.46.223N/37.223W

The lack of wind has been extremely challenging from a mental standpoint. Since we departed San Francisco it's been a basic combination of bobbing around with little to no wind or motoring for hours on end. Yesterday I think we motored for 14 hours. It looks like we've run the engine for about 32hrs thus far which was never part of the plan or expectation. For a sailor the sound of an engine is like an allergic reaction to adverse conditions. Additionally, I checked the plotting software and it's estimating at this pace we will arrive in Hawaii 23 days from today which gives us an arrival date of July 27th. I doubt this lack of wind will persist as a predicted northeastern breeze is expected to pick up tonight. If we double our speed when the wind picks up obviously the predicted arrival time will drop in half to 11.5 days from now. I'll keep the estimated arrival time updated as much as I can. 

On the note of wind, it finally swung around from the very gentle southwest to the maybe 5kt northwest. We finally cut engine today around 2PM, let out the sails and we're walking at a pace of around 4kts. It's and extremely welcome feeling and a relief to the crew to finally feel the wind on our faces. 

At around 1PM we saw a large ship (I think our AIS device said it was 442 feet long) headed to Co Bun. I don't know where Co Bun is or what country that is, but it sounds Vietnamese so I'm sure they're on a longer voyage than us. 

Last night was very uneventful. No fish on the water, no dolphins, no excitement. That said, there's been shortage of laughter, stories and deep conversation about what's on our minds. Without elaborating what's been discussed, I can only say I'm touched by the level of honesty, candidness, openness and level of trust among this crew to discuss important issues in our lives among a group of guys who just came together over zoom only 6 months ago.

Now that the wind has started blow the crew is extremely busy. As I write this, Gene is reading a book, Nick is napping on the sofa, Joe is in a deep slumber in his room with the room closed. 

Gene continues to cook gourmet food so do t expect a scrawny crew. We may need to join weight watchers post arrival.

Joe is constantly figuring out every electronic device and how to set/configure them to our needs.

Nick keeps asking the deep questions with his quotes from great philosophers and deep thinkers.

I'm a one trick pony who's focus is only on getting us to Hawaii as quickly and safely as possible.

Oh yes, today when the wind picked up we launched our sails. I went on the foredeck, Nick was at the helm, Gene was managing sail-sheets in the cockpit (and Joe was in his deep slumber), I asked Nick to keep a heading and suddenly the boat did an accidental jib and a bit of chaos ensued. Apparently I started barking some pretty aggressive orders from the foredeck to which one comment from Nick was "I can't see anything, I have sunscreen in my eyes! Gene, grab the helm, I can't see!". Gene took the helm, Nick cleared his sunscreen issue in a matter of seconds, then was back at the helm getting us under control. All was quickly well and we got things under control. I got back to the cockpit and the joke was "This captain does not request, he demands". All in good fun.