AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/05/09 17:58
LATITUDE: 09-13.10S
LONGITUDE: 123-22.22W
COURSE: 258T
SPEED: 8.1
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 20
WIND_DIR: ESE
WAVE_HT: 0.3M
WAVE_PER: 5
SWELL_DIR: ESE
SWELL_HT: 2.5M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 25%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1014.4
AIR_TEMP: 31.1C
COMMENT: Beach House – En Route – Marquesas Islands – Day 13 – 176 nm
ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM! Yesterday, a very unusual occurrence happened right after our 1800 UTC report. We saw another boat about 5 miles to our south. It looked big! Ironically, it\’s the same place (more or less) I spotted s/v \”Ulliad\” on the last time I did this trip.
We hailed on VHF and Pascal Imbert of s/v \”Water Music\” came back in perfect English. He\’s a 52 foot, all carbon fiber catamaran. Think NASCAR! He has a carbon fiber mast and spectra line rigging, perhaps 50% more sail area than we do.
He goes so fast, the apparent wind never gets behind his beam (90 degrees). He goes so fast, he actually can\’t sail with the wind. He has to zig zag radically across the wind – yes even when going down wind. He passed astern of us going 14-16 knots! He says it\’s uncomfortable having to sail across the swells so much, but he loves the speed. He has a very experienced crew of only 3 and it\’s a \”hand on the main sheet at all times\” type of vessel. An awfully small crew for such a rocket for my liking, but he clearly doesn\’t want the weight!
The other day, I wrote how almost no boats ever do 200 miles/day out here even once. Pascal never does LESS than 200 miles/day. Averages 270! and has several days over 300 miles/day! Whew!
He left Costa Rica (which is 650 miles further from the Marquesas) the same day we left the Galapagos. He\’s probably sailed 1200 miles to catch up the 650 he has so far. We\’ve about 5 days to go. He\’ll be there in 3!
That was the excitement of yesterday.
The winds were soft last night, but have picked up quite a bit today – 20-24 knots. We expect that tomorrow afternoon it will really be blowing and as such at some point we\’ll likely reef the main again. We\’re not quite smelling the barn yet, but we\’re beginning the last turn for the home stretch.
895 miles to go!
KIT,
Scott and Nikki
www.svbeachhouse.com