AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/05/13 18:00
LATITUDE: 10-19.61S
LONGITUDE: 134-27.25W
COURSE: 256T
SPEED: 8.3
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 20
WIND_DIR: ESE
WAVE_HT: 0.3M
WAVE_PER: 5
SWELL_DIR: ESE
SWELL_HT: 2.8M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1013.9
AIR_TEMP: 31.7C
COMMENT: Beach House – En Route – Marquesas Islands – Day 17 – 165 nm (245 nm to go!)
Yesterday, just after dark, the ENE wind switched under a cloud and we\’ve had very nice ESE to SE winds taking us directly down our course.
The morning was quite slow with light winds, but after the shift, we\’ve had 15-22 knots at various times. It\’s one of the reasons for the slow day…..However!
I take our \”daily runs\” at a consistent time. Last night on the Pacific Sea Farer\’s net, we checked in as usual at 0330. They chart all their check in boats daily runs and they had us doing 235 nm in 24 hour! So, you can see \”Miss Piggy\” really does rock and roll, it\’s just that I never cherry pick my own \”best run\” in any 24 hour period vs. the fixed times I use. As I write, we\’re on par for another long mileage day …. if the wind holds.
The steering is behaving \”better\”. Why, we\’re not sure, but in the lighter air it seemed to need less adjustment, as the wind has picked up, I\’ve needed to do it more often. The good news is, it\’s holding together.
If the winds hold for the next 24 hours, we should be able to make landfall at Fatu Hiva late Saturday night. If so, we\’ll have been on about an 18 day 6 hour trip. We\’ll see when we get there. The rudder business has cost us about a day. In 2009, we did this trip in 16 days 6 hours with a crew of three – Mike Lonnes, Cindy and myself. We had more stable air then and we were able to press on at times where this trip has been winds really up and down which makes flying a spinnaker more problematic with just two of us aboard.
Our friends on \”Blowin Bubbles\” are now 32 days out of Panama and should arrive at Fatu Hiva 12-20 hours ahead of us.
They feel like they\’ve been at sea forever, I\’m sure. I know of a boat however that did the same trip as they did and took 62 days! Why, they\’re veritable speed demons! It will be GOOD to relax and have a glass of wine with them.
Okay, bookin\’ for the barn, we can almost smell the frangipani from here!
Scott and Nikki