6/18
seas sloppy, had a good puke after breakfast.  didn't see any boats, wind picked up, set sail and killed engine.  nuther good puke after lunch.
dog watch, logging better than nine knots (around 1.2 mph)all day, made 10.5 for a while.  furled jib with andy, got dunked to my waist.  saw a few volalas and porpi.

We split the crew into three "watches" of three or four people, two professional crew and one or two students.  Each watch will be on for four hours and off for eight except that we split the 1200 to 1600 watch into two two hour "dog watches" so that we don't get stuck with being on at the same time every day.
furling the jib (furthest forward sail on the boa)involves climbing way out on to the bowsprit which occasionally gets stuffed into a wave, this was one of those occaions.
volala volala is a strange type of jellyfish (so strange that they have their own phylum, thats why you get to say the name twice.  kind of a funname anyway) that has a little sail on it's back and they float on the surface and you'll see millions at a time.  I've seen two groups of these and they both took multiple days to sail through.

sat. 21
the boys caught a fish, spent forever reeling it in and he got away 20 ft. from the boat.  happy birthday Andy.

Sun 22.
squally sunrise, sailed right through middle of a rainbow.  found coupla squid on deck this morning.  saw a flying fish and an airplane.

When it's raining on the ocean, rainbows don't stop at the horizon, they go most of the way around.  pretty cool.

Mon 23
still squally but starry in between. warm. still making at least seven knots.  crossed a time zone.

thu 26
stood midnight watch in my t shirt.  nice.  wind getting kind of doldrummy.  not so nice.

fri. 27
really hot.  watermaker fresh flushed all night.  drained the port tank.  hosed out bilge.  sticked tanks. got really sweaty.  caught a mahi mahi after dinner.  got a little rain.  started the main engine and struck the squaresails.

We have a desalinator to make fresh water and after every use it will automatically flush it's filters out with fresh water for eight minutes.  this time it didn't stop.  The bilge in the aft cabin has been filling up with really stinky water from somewhere so i took the fire hose to it.  We check the fuel levels with a five foot dipstick.  Each watch is allowed a shower every three days so I tried to save the really dirty sweaty jobs for those days.  So little wind that we decided to motor for a while.  The square sails aren't much good for this so they come down but the for and aft sail actually help out a little so they go back up.

sat. 28
wind came back, shut down me (main engine) and set squares before breakfast.  ate that poor little mahi for lunch sashimi style.  field day (major cleanup).  put the sleeping bag away, got a sheet.  started reading The Cheese Monkeys (a good book if you ever see it.  finished The Princess Bride coupla days ago).  flying fish landed on deck early am.  put him on the hook for bait.  fixed mid head sink again.  crossed another time zone.

sun. 29
nearly got hit with a flying fish (thunk!).  still hauling ass.  saw the southern cross, alphi and Beta Centauri.

m.30
nuther day in paradise.

tues. 1
eta tomorrow.  struck main and courses.  still making 6.5 on foretopsail.

Had to take in some sails or we'd be early for our appointment with the photo boat.  6.5 was still pretty fast and the fortop is almost the smallest sail on the boat.

wed. 2
Maui looks like Sandia Peak from a distance.  all hands on deck after breky.  set everything but courses and studsail.  made 12 kts.  perfect wind and waves.  mounted guns, made landfall, rigged shorepower and water etc.  showered, went out for dinner ashore with Woody and the gang.

I'm told 12 knots is a record for the boat!  Grand arrival!

tues. 6/17
final preperations and a hectic trip to the fuel dock with a going away party and gun stowage.  underway around four.  need more wind, still motoring.  pretty tired, stayed out too late with the crew from the HMS Rose.

We stowed the carronades in the bilge for the trip over, partially for their own protection and partially for better wieght distribution and stability.  The four big ones wiegh arround 350 lbs each and the little swivel guns are like 75 lbs each and the hatch that they go through is right next to the fuel tank holes and everyone was tripping over my fuel hoses and throwing flowers and stuff.  bought around a thousand gallons of fuel for the trip.

TGIF set reefed topsail.  when a line is full of seawater, it sparkles when you handle it.  Andy told the story of the Whaleship Essex (In The Heart Of The Sea, I'm told it's an excellent book but i haven't gotten to read my copy yet). on midnightwatch.  stars came out for twenty minutes and the moon peeked through several "sucker holes" in the clouds.  up all day.  perfect sailing weather.  crew is becoming a crew.  one contact reported last night.  saw a frieghter, 6 mile cpa (closest point of approach).

We saw a lot of bioluminescent plankton and the decks got covered with it.  it's a pretty neat effect,  gets on the ropes and they sparkle in your hand.
Andrew, by the way, is the first mate and a long time friend of mine, also my watch leader.
These were two of the three boats that we saw on the trip.

tue. 24
blew out the studsail club.  set the other course and struck the forsail.  wind shifted 20 degrees.  may have to jibe to get far enough south.  had our halfway swizzle combined with gabriella's b.day party

The studsail is a relitively delicate sail and the club is the spar that it hangs from.  The courses are the lowest square sails on the boat.  We have two and they are really nice for running downwind.  the forsail is a for and aft rigged sail that flogs back and forth when you run down wind and we were tired of the noise that it was making.  Jibing is a type of downwind turn that takes a little practice.  we actually only turned three or four times in 2100 miles.  The halfway swizzle was great fun.  we had soft drinks and cake and got to play the stereo (try going for a week or two without those).  Gabriella was one of the students on my watch.  Turned 14 and has already crossed the equator and Panama and can sortof do stellar navigation.  the other kid on our watch was Christian who at the ripe age of 15 is going to sail in the junior olympics this summer.  what am I supposed to teach them?

8/6 MOB drill, ran the small boat.  Good fun.  Mostly clear, kinda squally.  Nuther mahi.  Paker says it's a dorado.  He may be right.
MOB=Man Overboard Drill.  Heather usually drives the rescue boat (dingy) but in this excersize she was the hypothetical MOB so I drove and Ryan the bosun rode shotgun.  The weather was sunny except for the evenly spaced patches of small clouds that would pass over every couple of hours bringing five to twenty minutes of rain and 20 knot wind.  1 knot=1.2 miles more or less.

8/7  2 more mahis at the same time.  Ryan's bottle is the trick.  Buttscrub day and a good hair braiding from Heather,  worked on Andrew's bunk light all day long.  Averaged  better than 7kts yesterday.
Ryan said we should drag a wine bottle on the end of a long string just ahead of our fishing lures to attract fish.  Works real good.  Each watch gets to shower every third day.  Doug, the captain refers to this as buttscrub day.  We actually had a lot of days with really good wind and 7 knots is a good average for a sailboat this size.

 

 

 

8/11  Nuther tanker, 5 miles astearn.  About level with San Francisco.  Halfway to Kodiak.  Looked at the weatherfax, the high bends off to east for a fast run to Puget Sound.  Passed 1000mile mark.  Doug, Tia and Amy lost the frisbee.  Changed starboard generator fuel filter.
This tanker is one of three boats we saw the whole trip (till we reached the Sound). A straight line from Kauai to Kodiak, AK is roughly the course we took for  much of our trip.  The weatherfax is a nifty little device that recieves a pretty detailed weathermap of the whole ocean once a day from the... i actually don't know where it comes from.  Amy says it was a bad throw, Tia says it was a bad catch and Doug (the captain) instigated the whole affair.

8/12  port watch caught 2 little tunas and threw them back.  We caught 2 tunas and kept them.  Saw  a little seal this evening.  reefed main.
It was strange to see a seal out this far.  he followed us a ways.  reefing is the process of tying off a portion of the sail to effectively make a smaller sail for heavy winds.

8/13  Reefed foretop, double reefed main, reefed for.  wind 45kts, waves 12', 15 sec.  Mad rain, low vis.  summer's gone.  probly made 200kts over water though.
The fortopsail is the square sail that you have to climb way up in the rigging to reef, and you never do it unless the weather sucks.  200knots is a great run for this kind of boat over 24hours.

8/14  Storm's gone and all the wind with it.  Shook out all reefes and set everything.  logged 213 yesterday.

8/15  Broke main peak halliard block just after midnight.  got main down and set storm trisail.  morning watch fixed it.  and we reset it in the afternoon.  Little wind, seas still bumpy.  might get a good blow tommorow.  Jibed.  Got out the sleeping bag.  a little rain.
The main peak halliard is one of the big lines that holds up the main sail.  the block is the pulley that holds it up.  The storm trisail is a really heavy duty but small sail designed to fit where the main usually goes in really foul weather.  Jibing is the proces of turning away from the wind which requires careful adjustment of all of the sails.

8/17  Back on port tack.  Makes my bunk downhill.  Sun came out. wind came out.  Saw big dolphin party from aloft.  Maybe 2 pods,  smallish dark grey ones and bigger ones with bold grey stripeing.  maybe males and females.  wheres my camera?  Saw some whales too.   It's easier to moonwalk to leeward.  passed deepdraft on horizon, port.
My bunk is on the starboard side of the boat so on a starboard tack (wind from the right side) i tend to roll out.  there are "leeclothes" that you tie along the side of you'r bunk but they aren't as comfortable as the side of the boat.

8/21  Land ho!  big timer aurora borealis too.  Cleared customs, furled sail, hooked up power and water and went out.
This was Victoria, BC.  we were 10 days ahead of schedule due to the weather so we had a couple of days off here and gunkholed around the San Juan islands and the Puget Sound for a bit before arriving at Port Townsend for the big boat show.
Then to San Francisco and back here to Newport Beach.  Quite a ride.

Hope you enjoyed it.Fair winds and following seas,
Ben

8/4, Monday,
good day to start work.  Sittin on the beach in Hanalei (where Puff lives by the sea) with six jugs o diesel, one of gas and a dozen bags of canned goods and vegatables waiting for the small boat.  The cook got the first ride out with all the meat and dairy.
  Onboard, stash and lash the jugs, they stowed the guns while I was away, god bless them.  Then back ashore for one last email check and some ice cream.
  4:30 Back on board and setting the main, set jibs, hoist achor.  topsl, forsl and jib topsl.  Spaghetti dinner up on deck and steer full and by, NNW.  Sunset on port beam.
Hanalei doesn't have a dock big enough for the schooner so we anchored out and ran the dingy in to the beach.  we weren't sure what the weather would be so on top of the 1000 gallons of fuel the boat is designed to hold, we had four 55 gallon drums lashed to the deck and a pile of 5 gallon jugs that i kept in the engine room.  we get about a mile to the gallon but use some of the fuel to run the generators for a few hours a day to charge the batteries and desalinate water.  Turns out we sailed right off the anchor and didn't run the main engine at all for a week.  full and by is sailer talk for as far upwind as you can go and still keep the sails full.

8/5  caught another little mahi around 1700.  Held his dying head up so he could watch as i sucked his still quivering flesh from his salty bones.  Or at least that's how i want my biography to read.  Actually did fillet him myself with a lot of help from Tia and Parker.
Tia is the cook and Parker was our sole "passenger" on the trip.  He actually stood watches and participated as part of the crew though.

8/9  Port watch made the catch of the day,  the biggest mahi yet by all accounts.  But it was filletts before I got out of bed. Passed San diego's lattitude this morning and LA's this evening but 1800 miles west.  Passed a frieghter 5 miles ahead on night watch. watched Shreck, and Dazed And Confused.  Drank Coke, ate popcorn.  fell off and set starboard course.  Barometer 1029ish.  lots of trash in the water.
Falling off means to turn away from the wind.  The courses are a pair of excellent downwind sails that hang from the course (lower topsail) yard.  the Barometer is telling us that we are approaching the Pacific High, a high pressure system that hangs out in the middle of the ocean and has alot of wind around it's edges but little in the middle.  To go straight to California would require motoring straight through the middle of it.  The water in the pacific tends to spiral around it too and most of the trash in the ocean gets drawn towards the middle.

8/10  Quit fishin.  Fridge is full.  passed Monteray.  Made hard tack.
Hard tack is an old fashioned sailor bread that doesn't rot but its really hard, just saltwater and flower.  kind of addictive though

8/18  Caught a glimpse of the Northern lights.  Heard two whales astearn just before sunrise.  Butt ass cold though.  Watched Cannery row in the afternoon.

8/19  Cold and windy.  Waterheater quit and it's my shower day.  Had to go up and reef that damned topsl again.  making good time though.

8/20  slept and stood watch all day.