Richard and I have been battling squalls all day. Our goal was to get into the pressure that is slightly South of us, without going too far South and avoiding having to jibe at a bad angle. So we elected to sail slower, but directly to Honolulu. That gives a South-slant to our course. It’s…
1. Mast 2. Winch that is holding Richard up (central winch) 3. Grinder that I used to haul him up 4. Cabin Pod 5. Yours truly, Philippe 6. Two tillers 7. Sail bags with sails on the bow 8. Mainsail 9. Spinnaker
Richard taps his foot 7 times on deck. Just an hour of sleep in the last 24 hours… Time to jibe, we’re on a massive lift. We now jibe Melges 24 style. A bit daring, we just send it. Slowly at first, letting that clue pass around the forestay while Richard eases. The main is…
Wild Night in the North Pacific! In the last 6 hours, we saw it all: 10 to 28 knots, big thump (we hit ‘something’), multiple jibes in the night and one of the few times that we both trusted the auto-pilot so that I could crunch some weather files while Richard was off watch sleeping.…
Five times during the dark and squally night, Richard and I wanted to jibe either to stay in front of a windy squall or to take the radical right shift induced by the cloud. Yet just the two of us need over 30 minutes to jibe safely at night. We are comparing our track with…
Squally night. They come from right to left. So far we’ve been really lucky. The wind lifted a lot. If it persists, we will jibe in the morning at daybreak. There are flying fish everywhere. As I was steering down a wave, I got hit in the arm by a big one. One does get…
The pad eye that exploded had a defect. We took a picture of it. Richard had a better idea to fix this: build a soft pad eye right in place, using spectra line. The only difference is the fact that the new soft pad eye runs athwart ship as opposed to the exploded one that…
This has been a busy day for us on board the mighty Pegasus. Our crew of two has had to rebuild pad eyes, trouble shoot electrical problems (corrosion caused by sea-salt had jammed an electrical switch open) and go through a complete sheet and mechanical check. There is a boat to our port quarter. We…
Getting ready to take a batch of sites at Twilight. Jupiter, Venus and Polaris tonight. I like Polaris because you get your latitude right away and it’s a great way to cross-check everything. Our Navigator extraordinaire, Stockey who lives in Cowes, taught me a lot of simple and useful tricks that really make a big…
Bang. I mean big bang. I’m driving on deck; Richard is sleeping down bellow. The tip of the boom comes up violently. The vang pad-eye just exploded. I engage the pilot while watching carefully, trim in the main sheet and start looking for attachment points. Once I’m ready, I wake up Richard to see if…
In the last 24 hours despite being ‘swallowed’ by a net, and stuck a couple of times behind windless squally clouds, we still managed to sail 249 nautical miles, most of those in the direction of the Diamond Head Lighthouse. We are now sailing in solid 18 knot winds, gusting, our cog is 255 degrees,…
We did it! So picture the boat on its side in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Richard standing on the side (clipped-in), armed with a carbon mainsail batten and yours truly driving the boat to balance it on its side, just as the wind hit 18 knots accompanied by big swells. It was way…
After rain squall piled upon rain squall, refreshing but very light breeze, we managed to catch a squall that had 22 knots of breeze in front of it and ride it for 45 minutes. We chose to sail low in front of it because jibing quickly is not an option with the the two of…
Both wind strength and wind direction have improved. The Q-scat chart that we downloaded shows more headed pressure ahead. That’s exactly what we are looking for. Fundamentally, we have 5 days to get to Honolulu to be inside the record. We are about 1375 nautical miles on a Great Circle distance from Honolulu. On a…
About six hours ago the wind started to lighten up on us. We downloaded some very recent satellite images and noticed that there must be a lightning effect from the cold front that went through. The wind direction has not changed and we seem to be pointed towards the better breeze. In the last 24…
Beautiful sailing in the trades with the wind holding up nicely. Now we’re entering the third part of the race: running to Honolulu in the trades. The race course is a mine field of squally clouds that build up in the late afternoon when the ocean is still warm and the air temperature cools down…
That’s sailing in the trades…
We are in the trades. Our two on-board barometers show us around the 1019 isobar and that is exactly where we want to be. Those two barometers are a Vetus recording barometer and the Suunto watch that I wear on the wrist. They are carefully calibrated and together give us an objective assessment of the…
All is well this morning on-board the good ship Pegasus. The night sky was incomparable. First, with the moon and Venus on our bow, then as they set in the West, Jupiter guided us for a while even matching that 15 degree right shift in the wind in her walk down to the West. Yes,…
We found the trade winds High five! Now we’re going with 12 knots of wind, the kite and staysail up, and 10.5 knots of boat speed, pointing straight at Honolulu. The nice trade wind cotton puffy clouds are unmistakable. We’re pushing the boat hard and the reports are going to get shorter. It gets pretty…
We are roaming around 26N 126W and we like it. We call it our lucky number 26! With just the two of us 24 by 7 in a confined space the size of your kitchen table, we’re an easy audience. Take a look at the 48 hour surface analysis that our friends at NOAA just…
Everything malfunctions, it’s all good! This morning about everything that could fail failed. Not the sailing part. That always works. And we were down to the sails and the good old compass. That actually felt good. Richard is one of the great dinghy sailors and I sail mostly dinghies these days. So we were back…
Half of the night was spent drifting. Our 24 hour run was just 135 nautical miles. We probably skirted the high too close. I’m no rock-star navigator, sorry Richard! Now we’re back sailing with a bit more speed: 8 knots heading 200 degrees. It feels like a hurricane! Speaking of which, the one that we…
The wind vanished. Gone. For several hours we were becalmed, making sail changes, climbing the mast, seeking the puffs. And now the wind is back. Light, but it is back. This is going to be a short 24 hour run on miles but a critical one in terms of positioning. Richard is a fantastic light…
We’re happy: we entered the ridge of high pressure that extends to the southwest of the Pacific High and we seem to have a good angle. For a few hours we had very little wind, did about 5 sail changes and now are settled into a 9 knot northwesterly. We’ve seen big right handers, all…