This report is a little long, but I know Cap't G wants to know how TIKI
is doing........
At 10:30 on this Wednesday morning we just turned on the engine to motor
through the windless backside of a morning squall, charging the
batteries at the same time. So far we have run the engine 7.5 hours to
charge. We are 1640 NM from the Golden Gate and 560 NM NNE of Hawaii.
The last couple of days has seen some pretty incredible sailing
conditions with very flat seas, nice sunshine and winds ranging from 9 -
15 knots most of the time - the wind has been coming out of the ESE
allowing us to sail closer to the direct course to San Francisco than we
had hoped for.
Last night was spectacular with no cloud cover and a multitude of stars
that we tried to identify with Davids Ipad stargazer app.
We hand steer the boat to save on battery condition, you get 1 1/2 hours
at the wheel, then you can rest, read, chat, cook, clean or brush your
teeth the rest of the time - one unnamed crew finally found his
toothbrush for the first time yesterday!
We have had squalls every night into the morning hours. They add 5 - 10
knots to the general wind strength, the most we have seen yet is 24
knots of breeze, right when it was pitch black with no moon. A couple of
days ago we blew out the reefing block for the # 1 reef as the webbing
let go in a little gust. After getting the sail down it took an hour to
figure out how to use the 'speedy stitcher' , then 2 hours to sew new
webbing loops onto the sail to re-attach the reef block - looks a little
funky, but works fine.
The crew has definitely mellowed out from some pre departure anxiety.
There is a lot of reading and happy snoozing going on.
Everyone are getting along great swabbing stories and learning about
each other lives. Boat is clean and picked up, and as opposed to the
trip over the head smells like roses, as everyone is sitting down to do
all their business. The crew is very safety conscious, wearing life
jackets and harnesses on watch and whenever they need to be on deck to
work on reefing etc. So far everyone has been well behaved and we have
kept the noon floggings at the mast to a minimum.
Eating has been nice, I think. In general, we are eating like men! That
means plenty of meat, and hardly anything green. As a matter of fact, we
think the reef block let go because John made a girls meal for lunch
(salad w/ salami) and that instigated the following sewing session, so
no more girl food! Breakfasts have generally been sausage and eggs,
lunch yesterday was half raw hamburgers with 2 cans of chili, and dinner
was sliders with canned, buttered corn........get the drift? Later
today we are going to empty the cooler with the dry iced goods into the
main fridge and do a little re-arranging - we hope the ice cream is
still frozen as it is on the menu tonight!
As for strategy, we are close reaching N, trying to put in as much
easting as we can - from the gribs we downloaded yesterday it looks like
we should get lifted in the next day with slightly lighter winds - our
routing software tells us we will be sailing under the Golden Gate
Bridge on 8/20 at 4AM, but it does not know that we have a motor! It is
still way to early to come up with any good predictions before we are
through the High anyway.
Cheers Cap't T
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