It’s 0100, I’m sitting in the cockpit, drinking a cup of tea writing these lines, while the remote control screen of the Axiom navigation system at the tablet looks at me and wonders what I’m doing. Every 30 min the kitchen timer reminds me to check by radar if there is a vessel around, of which we need to take care. TWS is down to 4.1 KN. As Fatu-Hiva is 15 – 16 NM E of us, I wonder if the 400 – 600m high mountains, block the E-ly trade winds so heavily.

Until the wind dropped so strongly, it blew nicely from E.

I’m tired and fighting with sleep.
On the other hand I have you careful watch what MaRe it’s doing to see if I need to start the engines. As we were ahead of the time to the anchorage, I can wait and see. The remaining distance we have to cover, is only 41 NM thus in 0800 we will cover it under engines.

I started the engines and push with only 1000 RPM towarlds our next way point. This is not enough to be in time at the place were we need to be but it helps to get north of Fatu-Hiva to see if the wind is stronger there again.

Also the night was simply quiet routine work. Every 30 min checking radar in the 24 NM radius. Normally nothing is to be be seen. Only in the first night we saw the MV Taporo, the supply boat on its way from Hiva-Oa to Rikitea, where people are waiting for it. Shops ran out of quite some things before we left.

With only the genoa up and the wind from a very constant direction. There is nothing to be done in terms of sail trimming or adjusting the sailing direction.

I exchanged during my watches emails with a friend in Germany about the problem of the lost contact and calendar data in both mobile phones. It seems he never sleeps. We came to a better understanding of what we need to look at. However, I first need Internet in Hiva-Oa, and this comes after the meeting with the sail maker.

This morning I tackled the fishing rod because all the small rollers which are made of brass where covered with an oxide crust. Things made for saltwater high sea fishing are made of poor quality material. After a few hours, they look like new. Now Shigeo and I hope that especially the tuna will appreciate that and take a hearty bite into the lure.

Today the kitchen task will be mine. I’m supposed to bake fougasse. So I better start now.

Haven’t written much since the main broke yesterday. I feeling a bit down.

This morning I wanted to speed up our slow getting approach to Hiva-Oa because the wind came from 70 – 80 deg STB and was stable around 10 – 12 KN. AWS and TWS was almost the same.
Forecast also indicated 10 KN, which has +-.

So I decided to use gennaker. When it was up MaRe started running. While we fine trimmed the gennaker there was another bang. A sudden gust was too strong and the gennaker broke.

Now we are running at an average SOG of 3.2 KN with the genoa and I’m thinking when to start the engines.

We discussed it and decided it would be good to arrive at Sunday noon at the anchorage. We don’t know how the situation there really is. But we know we need stern anchor as well. For this week have to consider 2 h. Because we needed to get the tender ready to transport the stern anchor at the right spot.

Roughly estimated we have time 2100 to night to start the engines. As the distance, which needs to covered depends on the time and sailing speed, a differential equation needs to be solved.

There is a possibility that a brilliant young man, studying Theoretical Physics in the second term, reads this narration, and becomes eager to solve the differential equation, here are the parameters for the differential equation.

At 14. Jul 1200, the boat is 200 NM from the anchorage away.
The boat moves along a straight line towards the anchorage. When sailing the boat moves with 3 KN, when running under engines it moves with 5 KN. The boat should arrive on 16. Jul, 1200 at the anchorage.
When does the skipper needs to start the engines.

Young man, you can send the solution to skipper-car-mare@myiridium.net

Having now outlined the conditions for the differential equation, I’m feeling a bit better and would love to discuss and solve the equation together with the brilliant young man.

At shortly after 0700 we changed MaRe’s night gown for her day time working dress. With reef 2 in the mainsail replaced by reef 1 and the genoa fully unfurled, MaRe was running above 7 KN already with the untrimmed mainsail. Thus, more than 8 KN where to be expected for quite some times of the day. This all would have led to a day distance of more than 160 NM.

But then….

… there was bang and the boom was on the cockpit roof and the mainsail was down as well.

Broken main halyard was my first thought but turning my eyes towards the mast I saw that the head of the sail was damaged. There are 3 ribbons, which are connecting the sail to the aluminum part of the sail head. All 3 ribbons are broken.

I knew immediately that we are safe and can sail – limited so – with the genoa. We simply kept and are keeping on with the genoa.

After storing the mainsail in the sail bag and clearing all lines up, I contacted the “maintenanceservice” on Hiva-Oa and described what happened. Pretty immediately I got the answer that they have a sail maker.

Therefore we changed plans and route and we sail directly to Hiva-Oa. We should be able to make until Sunday or Monday.

Then we have to see. That’s sailing as well.

We are progressing with an average SOG of 3.4 KN since the sail broke. We also had after a short rain shower a “Kartoffelacker” with only 4 – 6 KN for a while. With TWS of about 16 KN we make 4+ KN STW. VMG (velocity made good) to WPT is a bit higher and the most important one. What counts at the end is our arrival time and not and a certain speed we look at. Please keep fingers crossed that we 20 – 25 KN during the night.

Just started my last watch of this night. Feeling tired. Need to sleep at least once during the day.
Shigeo should feel the same. He also needs sleep.

Half time. 0400 log book entry.

Although in the last 4 h, the averaged SOG dropped just to 5.9 KN the day distance is 154 NM.
Wind increased back to 5 Bft and to E. Thus we get more AWS which pushes MaRe more and we get more electricity from the SuperWind 350 wind converter.

Ride is a bit bumpy now. Waves increased during the night.

RTE ETA is now a day earlier but we must keep our speed. Fluctuations are still too big.

Coffee. Do we still have some? Tea should be gone by now.
Lucky, there was cup of tea left. Took a chocolate chips cookie. Should learn how to bake chocolate chips cookie.

Who has a good recipe? Please send as text to skipper-cat-mare@myiridium.net You will get a special place in my heart, which beats for and with chocolate chips cookies.

Radar check. Nothing to be seen in 24 NM around us. Perfect!

Sunrise today is at 0630, thus around 0700 we will change to reef 1 in the main. MaRe’s working dress. Hope wind stays at 5 Bft this could give as average SOG, 7 KN. Let’s see!

Looking outside of the PRT window in looking at the sun about to set. Maybe 5 – 10 min more and the sun is behind the horizon. It became real magnificent sunset, which we both watched in its last minutes.

Behind this horizon the Kontiki crew around Thor Heyerdahl saw the sun going down in the last nights before the successful end of their epic sail from the South American continent to Polynesia with they proofed that it is possible that the Polynesien Island were populated from people from South America.

History says that they understood they need to get the right wave to cross over the eastern reef of Raroia Island to make a safe arrival in the lagoon. To achieve this, they used all what they could use as drift anchor to slow Kontiki sufficiently down and then cut all these things off to make it with the right wave over the reef.

Raroia Island is located at 16 deg 07 min S 142 deg 25 min W.
We passed this island today at distance of 270 NM. For us it would be 1 1/2 d. How long did it take for Kontiki?

…. and the night.

MaRe got her night gown rather early today. When wanted to start the work there was nice wind blowing coming from a big low hanging cumulus nimbus cloud at our port side. MaRe accelerated to top speed of more than 8 – 9 KN. It was just fun to see her ploughing through the sea. So we talked about the clouds for a while until the influence of the cloud was gone. We then did the normal procedure for getting reef 2 into the main sail. Now I hope we get enough wind to make it with more than 6 KN in average through the night. There are few clouds hanging ahead of us. Thus there is a chance for “cloud riding”.

Night routine started; I’m taking the first watch starting at 1900.

Shortly after 0700 changed MaRe’s night gown, mainsail with reef 2, to get working dress, mainsail with reef 1.

She likes it because she runs in average almost w knots faster.

The sky is only covered by about 1/8 with few cumulus clouds and even lesser with altocumulus clouds. Thus we should have sunshine all day long – hopefully.

With the wind down to 4 Bft mainly, in gusts it goes up to 5 Bft, the sea calmed down further during the night. So we have wind waves between 50 cm and a meter; swell is down below 2 m but the periods are far less than 10 s. Since I’m in the Pacific ocean I want to have again the very long and high swell I know from sailing in Japanese waters. What we have here is always a swell wave system from 2 different direction creating a choppy sea, which makes MaRe dancing on them.

When going into the cockpit, feeling the already warner wind – we are already 8 deg, thus 480 NM further N – it is just a very pleasant feeling. Sailing is simply a wonderful feeling-experience.

During my night watches I already prepared dough thus in about 45 min we should have freshly baked bread. Shigeo already made a delicious green salad with shaddock filets. He really removes even the internal skin of shaddock to get the real fruit fillet. I’m looking forward to our breakfast in a sunny and warm cockpit.

It’s already 0400 on board of MaRe.

With her night gown she made the last 4 hours only an average speed of 5.3 KN. Slow she became because the wind is since about 16 h weak, only 4 Bft.
Tomorrow morning she will get her working dress, only reef 1 in the main. This will increase the day distance to above 150 NM.

It’s bread baking night at MaRe. I just started to prepared the dough. Water & flour is mixed and are autolyzing for an hour. Then sourdough will be added an all will be folded and kneaded for 15 min.

After that narration, will prepare tea and coffee, because the genset runs to charge the batteries. With winds falling below even 12 KN, my wonderful SuperWind 350 can’t deliver enough to cover all the electrical power needed for all running systems. Main consumers are the autopilot drive, 2 fridges, Axiom and all other navigation system, radar, and light once here and once there on board.

I think to write on a German language report. It’s a translation work from my original English language report.

It’s 19:16 board time at MaRe, which is 04:14 UTC, and abeam on STB is the atoll Pukaru. It’s an uninhabitated atoll and also not fully charted. Most likely it is fully encircled by a coral reef without a pass to enter.

As the island is about 10 NM away from us, we wouldn’t have seen it even in daylight. Only at the radar screen we see 2 blips. This should be 2 parts of the island, high enough to reflect the radar beam.

With passing this island we have sails 442 NM since lifting the anchor in front of Mangareva’s E side at the Gambier Islands.

To Fatu-Hiva we have 472 NM ahead of us. The current ETA is 23-07-15 17:54. This time it’s calculated by the Axiom chart plotter based on the actual speed. Thus this will vary greatly.

Because we are approaching a bay from W, we ideally would be arriving shortly after noon to make the landfall. More about this in the next days.

For tomorrow we will use only reef 1 in the main to gain speed and NM left in the wake behind us. Thus, around 0700 we will change MaRe’s night gown for her day working dress.

I just had the luxury of a hot shower, drink a cup of tea, Shigeo prepared before and do my normal night watch routine. Among other things it’s a radar check every 20 min and have a look around the boat, watching the instruments for TWS, heading of the boat as we use wind vane mode, watching the pilot screen for alarms by wind shifts of more than 15 deg, downloading the latest weather forecast from the ECMWF, the European worldwide weather forecast with an excellent level of accuracy, and, most important, stay awake until 2000 when Shigeo takes over.

In June I wrote a lot about food, which I’m searching, getting, and cooking.

I’m not fancy about certain food but when sailing, food becomes important in respect to getting sufficient vitamins. Canned food fills the stomach but doesn’t contain any vitamins any more.

Therefore, I wanted to get and eat fresh vegetables and fruits. As much as possible. On top of this some of the things I finally got where new to me. Thus, I needed experiment with this new veggies and fruits.

Our current sail is shorter, in about 3 – 5 days we should be able to buy fresh veggies and fruits again. Until then we still have lettuce, we got at the day before the departure, onions, and plenty of shaddocks. For the first 2 days we even had still a few bananas.

Summary: I got enough vitamins and we have sufficient vitamins containing food on board.