During the day MaRe ran in the 5 – 6 KN range through the bumpy sea. A bit more wind came up and we reefed the Genoa a bit more to allow the hydrogenerator to stay in the water longer. (Typically I take it out when the STW is around 6 – 6.5 KN.)

Around 0300, I took the hydrogenerator out to not need to limit MaRe’s speed potential any longer. Since then she runs in the speed range of 6 – 8 KN with peaks above 8.

It’s fantastic to look at the wake at her sterns an see the speed with which she ploughs through the nightly, bumpy sea. I also feel her speed while sitting at the navigating desk inside.

MaRe run and feel free with the SE trade winds in your sails.

Day distance at noon is 99 NM today. One short of the 100.

As we are now out of the doldrums with days of drifting, I want to calculate daily at noon the day distance we made.

It is the distance we sail in 24 h. Normally it’s calculated from noon to noon, but it also can be calculated from any point in time back by 24 h

Today sailing is pretty bumpy, but MaRe ploughs through the choppy waves, which form little pyramids. When a rather undisturbed swell wave rolls on to her from PRT she moves her PRT hull up and let’s it glide down the back of the wave. Her STB hull with its huge buoyancy stabilizes her so she can take any other wave with her PRT hull again.

The sea looks grey today. Grey like the fully cloud covered sky above. No sunlight creates the dark ocean blue, I like so much. All we have as contrast to the grey are the white crests of quite some waves. It looks as if the waves want to stand up but fall over immediately.

In a distance of sufficient NM in 0700 direction there is a huge conglomeration of dark grey, low hanging clouds. From their bottom, in many shades of grey, there are jelly fish like tentacles hanging down. Filled with water. Rain. Will these clouds come so close that their rain tentacles will reach us? Will they pour all their content on us?

In the early afternoon, maybe 1400, we had our “the-same-procedure-as-every-day luncheon soup. Today with rice. However, today it was a bit wavey in the soup pot. Skillful scooping was needed. All was done successfully and our stomachs are filled with a hot soup.

With all this additional energy in us, we put first reef in the genoa because it seemed that the wind will definitely go above 20 KN TWS. But as the rule goes, when you reef your sails, the wind goes down. It did so and we are back to 15, 16,17 KN of wind. But MaRe still runs top speeds of close to seven knots.

How long will this day sailing continue? All night long?

Dennis caught his first mahi-mahi. It was 60 cm long and will be just enough for a fish dinner tonight. I’m looking forward to the first fish dinner on this long sail.

In the early afternoon we saw a huge cloud and squall coming towards MaRe and we prepared ourselves. MaRe was already in the safe state with reef 2 in the main sail. But we put on our foul weather great to not get completely wet again.

Then the wind increased and MaRe increased her speed as well, thus we went on with a SOG of a bit above 6 KN in peak. However, the rain did not come. The cloud was sufficiently away from us to give us wind for speed but did not dump rain on us. We kept sailing like this for more than an hour. Wonderful. Higher wind speed but no rain.

But later we also got a bit rain. Well protected in our clothes we did not get wet at all.

The down side of any squall ride is always coming at the end. The winds goes down, but the waves stay high for a while more. This then is a bumpy ride.

In summary we had a nice squall ride and made some miles!

What will the night bring us?

On the non-sailing side of our life on board, there is a delicious smell of pasta coming out of the pantry. Dinner is ready any moment. Tjasa spoils us.

About two hours ago we decide to enter the SE trade winds, the wind system in the South-East Pacific. “Entering” means changing our course directly to the Gambier Island.

On one side the decision was easy and on the other it was difficult. After many considerations over the last days, and this morning, the decision to sail from now on, on the direct route to Gambier was easy because it appeared suddenly as the logical route. Like it was for Bernard Moitessier when he decided to sail back to Europe from Tahiti via Cape Horn.

Until our WPT north of the reef around Gambier Island, we have 2800 NM ahead of. It’s the same distance as crossing the Atlantic Ocean. “Always say ‘Yes’ to new adventures” was the motto created by Guenther for the Atlantic crossing.

Let’s see what this huge ocean has for MaRe and her crew!

… during a windless watch.

During my watch, at about 0520 i felt that wind is coming. 5 – 6 KN of wind I saw at the wind meter. After checking direction, pulled the genoa out fully and opened it more, using the barber hauler. While i wanted to trim the wind angle the wind got lost. The bl….. monkey with the tin tool stole it again. So I furled the genoa again and buried my dream of sailing across the 5th latitude S.

I used the time, made water, did laundry, and made a pot of coffee (mainly for our coffee monster) a pot of Earl Grey (mainly for our cookie monster) and a pot of mint tea (mainly for our xxx monster). Currently I’m waiting for the washing machine to finish it’s program.

So far about early morning activities on board of MaRe on her way to the Gambier Islands during a windless morning.

What will the day bring us?

What the night did NOT bring us was sufficient wind to sail beyond the latitude 5 deg S.

We had to get the sails down before midnight. With the wind missing, they became just useless accessories flapping in the wind.

A squall which passed us without influencing us much.

A report from SY Katinka, that they have no wind at all.

At the beginning a good dinner made by Tjasa.

A cup of tea I made myself during watch and a few cookies.

That’s all until 0405 UTC-5.

As I used in the previous narration the word “routine”, here is a routine we did around noon.

At PRT we saw a wonderful squall carrying cloud approaching. Too nice to neglect it. When we were sure, it will hit us, we made the “squall routine”.
– Furling the genoa
– Starting the engines
– Steering into the wind
– Getting the main down to reef 2
– Hooking the reef 2 ring into the gooseneck shackle
– Pulling the sail up
– Getting tension into reef 2 line
– Letting the top lift carefully out to see if the boom it’s carried by the sail
– Clearing up the all lines around the mast
– Getting boat back into course
– Pulling the genoa out
– Trimming genoa and main sail to wind and course
– Securing the boom

As we perform this routine already very well, we had to do it about 4 hrs later again.

Now it’s 16:45, MaRe wears already her night gown, which makes her squall safe, and as we have a bunch of squalls hanging at the horizon, we leave her dressed as she is already for the night.

What will the night bring us?

The moment I wrote above line a rain front approach MaRe from about 0500 direction at an incredible speed. We just had enough time to jump into our rain gear when the rain created, whitish sea surface, perfectly illuminated by the sun through a hole in the clouds reached MaRe. I never saw such a spectacular phenomenon before.

That fast a squall can hit a boat! “Fail to prepare, is prepare to fail!”, is the sentence which got once again in my mind.

If nothing unforseen happens, I’m going to upload this narration now!

After a night with some strong wind shifts and a short stronger wind period, the night and the morning was less of the routine pattern than I first thought.

The wind shifts were funny. First we sailed for a while to SE then to SW and finally to NW. When we sailed NW I thought about changing the tack. Fortunately I successfully bet the wind shifts are only temporarily.

The strong wind period lasted maybe for 15 to 20 min. No squall around but I consider a big strato cumulus cloud at about 11:00 direction in a distance of 6 NM from MaRe to have brought this wind.

Tjasa, who stayed up after the end of her watch, went to bed without breakfast. She was too tired today.

So the breakfast with only Dennis and me was an exception in the routine a well. For me it’s important that we have meals together. First we are all around the table; second, it’s s good chance to have look at the latest wind forecast.

Today we changed the sail after breakfast. We increased from reef 2 to fill size main sail to make as much speed as possible.
Still we are slow because the wind speed is so slow. But we are moving in the right direction.

Until the far away horizon, the sea surface is tinted in deep blue. Ocean blue. The surface is sprinkled with small wavelets less then 30 cm height. Wavelets as they are typical for 2 Bft winds. Underneath of all this is the underlying swell. One, almost 100 m long swell rolls to MaRe from about 200 deg with a height of maybe 1 1/2 m. The other one, less in height rolls onto MaRe from about East. Although this should create a choppy sea, it is fast less bumpy then yesterday.

Tjasa still sleeps.

Dennis trolls a lure. Will he finally catch his dream fish today?

I’m sitting in the cockpit looking astern at the sea described above and thinking that MaRe left already her two tracks in the ocean since we left Vista Mar Marina and sailed the first 1500 NM of her voyage to the Gambier Islands of French Polynesia.

“Great sailing!” was Dennis’ answer when I asked him to describe today in a short sentence.

It was indeed a good description because we sailed from yesterday shortly after dinner non-stop.

Early in the morning we changed the main sail from reef 2 to reef 1 to gain more speed. With this we sailed the hole day until sunset, the normal time to dress up MaRe in her “night gown”. As we expected to get hit by a huge squall ahead of us, we reduced the genoa size additionally. But why back to a larger genoa size when we saw the extended squall just moved across our course about 6 NM ahead of us.

The ride was a bit bumpy during the day as we sailed close hauled course of 45 deg AWA. The bumps were caused by at least 2 swell systems running into each other.

Except for the great sailing we had the day was filled with board routine.

For dinner Dennis made again his new speciality, a lentil stew. Half we had for dinner, and the other half, with a small modification, we will have for lunch next day.

So what will the night bring us?