Captains log: The days bob on

Date: July 13, 2022

Time: 17:49

Location:28.6.322N / 135.6.420W

After an exciting day of nice wind pushing us along, the tables once again changed last night at around 22:00. We've noticed that on rare days we do have wind, it always dies at night. I don't recall a single night with wind. So once again the pattern returned, leading us to bob and flop up and down and side to side over the waves. Almost aimlessly bobbing around on the ocean. 

At 06:00 this morning when Nick and Joe retired from their shift and I took over, I got my alone time on deck and looked forward to that moment when the wind would pick up again. It's daytime I thought, and we had good wind yesterday, surely we will have wind again today. I waited patiently. And waited and waited. Gene had his shift from 22:00-02:00 so he got up around 08:00. He reached yet another high when he handed me a giant cheese omelet, sliced melon and a toasted bagel. The ocean was still flat and I was still optimistic that the wind would pick up, but it didn't. I wanted to charge our batteries again today so when Nick got up around 10:00, we fired up the engine. Oh, Joe was dead asleep in the cockpit this morning. Nick and I were yelling "Joe, wake up!", but he wasn't coming to. We decide to let him sleep a bit more in the cockpit. In stead of just running the engine in neutral to charge, I took the opportunity to throw it in gear and do anything to make headway. Might as well keep forward momentum towards Hawaii...we only motored for an hour which propelled us just 5 miles or so. 

The entire day continued to shlog on with no wind, just bobbing like a cork in the sea. Everyone has gotten a bit quiet and buried their noses in books as there's not a whole lot more to do. I got another page into my book but fell asleep in the cockpit until 12:30. When I woke up I couldn't take it anymore. I had to do something....since the spinnaker blew up two days ago, I thought we should try and repair it. We could fly it in these light conditions. Nick cleared off the dining area then I spread the tattered carnage upon the operating table. For two hours we carefully duct taped every seam, sew in reinforcement lines and even used a strip of adhesive velcro. Joe wanted in on the action so he put on a few strips of duct tape too. 

Just as we finished and were going to let our sail fly on its prosthetic leg, the wind picked up ever so slightly. So slightly meaning too much wind for our spinnaker and not enough wind to really propel us with our normal sail configuration. We need to be sailing straight downwind in about 7knts of wind. 

I called an all hands on deck and said we were just going to experiment with various configurations. For maybe two hours all of us frustrated the hell out of ourselves by trying jib only, jib and mainsail, jib, mainsail and staysail, jib on the right, main on the left, all sails on the left, mainsail only, every combination imaginable until we finally said F#$k it and put it back to jib only. Nick and Gene went below to read. Just then, the wind started to pick up a tad more so Joe and I changed tack, Nick came up and we launched the main. 

That brings us to speed as of the beging of me writing this post. But wait for the punchline, we're not headed towards Hawaii. I mean that in the sense of one step back, two steps forward. We're currently headed south-east. As I look at the plotter, we are making negative headway towards Hawaii. Why? I carefully examined the weather reports and if we stay on course directly for Hawaii, the forecast is showing essentially NO wind starting tomorrow and it could continue for days. There is a high moving down (a high=NO wind) and it looks like it's coming directly in our path. However, there is a lot of wind south and south east of us. When I say a lot, check a weather site and you'll see there is currently a hurricane with 140mph winds. We would obviously never, ever head into something like that, and the hurricane is way way down there...but if we can squeeze ourselves between where the hurricane and the high are, we will get very swift trade-winds. I told the team we would be headed away from Hawaii and when we look at the plotter it says we're doing negative distance, but the team is 100% on board. No-one can take this no-wind situation any longer and everyone understands that if we head south, we will get wind. So if you see some wild zig-zags on the tracker, don't be surprised. It's part of the plan!

Now for something comical to lighten the mood! There's a large beautiful navigation compass right in front of the helm. Every good sailor needs his big compass. Joe kept saying, "I think something is wrong with the compass, it seems to move". I reminded Joe that at night, at anytime really, things can be deceiving and you always trust your compass. It was same in my flight training, when all your electronic fail, nothing is working, always trust your compass. I even mentioned this to Joe. As the days rolled on, Joe continued to insist that something was wrong. I've personally been making all my navigation decisions based on the electronics on the boat, so I've actually not been looking at the compass much to see if there's an error. Then I come up on night and Joe said something like "I got it! The compass is wrong!". As it turns out, there's a drink holder right in front of the compass. And as it turns out, three of us have Yeti insulated mugs which have a big fat magnet in the lid! So between picking up the coffee to take an swig and returning it, the compass swings 60 or so degrees. So there's a lesson. Always (except for when you have a yeti mug), trust your compass! 

The crew continue to be the hero's of the night. Joe powers on with his 22:00-06:00 shift.

Update on the reading since yesterday:

Gene almost finished with his first book

I got one page in, then fell asleep with the book in my hand

Joe, said he doesn't really like reading

Nick, probably read 3 more books since yesterday