Date: 08/17
Noon to noon run: 116NMTime of position: 18:00
Lat/Lon: 29 08.74'N deg 158 deg 11.85'W
Course: 360 deg Mag
Current Speed: 6kt
Next Waypoint: 32 deg 59.00'N; 157 deg 43.00'W
Mid North Pacific, due North of Oahu
207 NM distance
Synopsis:
At about 10:15 this morning we finally passed the
turn-a-round spot from our first delivery attempt in 2008. - Yea! At 430Nm
north of Oahu, that was a painful return.
The squalls never developed last night and in fact we
spent most of the night sailing painfully slow. When I came on watch at 3AM.
The first thing Dick and I did was take the main sail from second to first
reef. Then, over the course of my watch I sequentially unfurled the genoa to
its full 130% size and shook out the main sail's first reef as well long before
sunrise. Unfortunately, throughout my watch the wind grew lighter and lighter,
so much so that by the end of my watch I was struggling to keep Music moving at
all.
Yesterday one of my crew observed, "What does it
matter if we arrive a day later?" In answer, my philosophy is, and always
has been, to sail as efficiently and as fast as possible without unduly working
the boat hard or pounding. When I was mountaineering I learned to spend as
little time as necessary under objective hazards, as the more time you spend
among objective hazards the more likely you are to get your butt spanked.
Applying this to an ocean crossing I believe that you should spend as little
time as necessary on the ocean to get across it. While I am not afraid of being
on the ocean, the more time you spend out there the greater your chances (on
any one given crossing) that you will encounter some real nastiness. Besides, I
never met a sailor who complained the crossing was too fast or said, "Boy,
I wish we spent a few more days out there!"
Cheers,
John
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