Yesterday late afternoon we had very nice wind for a good broad reach run. The genoa only was the ideal sail because it was time to consider the approaching night.

Unfortunately the wind changed and at the end we sailed at an AWA 70 deg with only the genoa. Too reluctant to hoist the main with reef 2.

At 0700 this morning, we finally set the main at reef 1. This is the right sail for day time and the current apparent wind of 10 – 17 KN from 60 -70 deg STB. MaRe accelerated from a STW of 0.3 – 2.5 KN on no time to STW of above 5 KN.

I got the feeling that MaRe wants to arrive at Penrhyn Island ASAP. She runs.

The weather is nice. Just right for sailing and the sunrise was gorgeous.

On top of this, the wind direction is sufficient stable and I can use the track mode of the auto pilot.

Current ETA at the WPT PenrhynSW is 24.09.24 1154. Let’s see when we arrive and what kind of wind situation we face on the last 324 NM.

Through reading in my narrations, you know already that Mr Wind-ow, a friend of mine met him once in the Eastern Pacific, is in charge of shoveling wind to the sailboats out in waters of the oceans.

Then there is his counter part “the monkey with the tin tool” which steels the wind from the sail boats or deviates or weakens the wind. He is the really bad guy.

Mr Wind-ow is actually a good guy but he knows his position on the wind market and became very arrogant. He just tries first to satisfy his key account customers before he shovels wind to small wind-needers as we are.

There is fortunately someone else available. This one doesn’t really provide wind, but he is a fox biting Mr Wind-ow when he is lazy. The new guy is Mr Lin-ux, the cute and smart penguin. With his sharp beak he pokes Mr Wind-ow In his lazy bum that he shovels more wind to us no-key-account sailors.

I try to report more on these 3 guys.

We are drifting,
We are drifting,
We are drifting, windless waters, in the sea….
(Rod Stewart, if I’m not wrong)

We just put the sails down because the today pretty good matching weather forecast says no wind for the next 3 h. There are also no nimbus clouds around, which could bring a bit of wind.

As for the weather model I’m using ECMWF and offshore as a cross reference SPIRE. What I don’t understand is why the US GFS model has no significant visible improvements. The hit rate of the GFS (Global Forecast System) is much lower than the hit rate of the models I’m using.

… it could have been!

15 KN of a constant wind from E so we could run with 7 – 8 KN towards Penrhyn Island…

Dreams!

Instead, in my watch I had first winds of 4 – 9 KN TWS with very frequent changes in directions for quite a while, requiring always adjustments of the wind vane angle. At the end of this period the wind turned in circles and was almost zero. Not a sailor’s dream but a nightmare.

Then one of the dark clouds, a fully loaded nimbus cloud, could not hold back anymore and dumped a lot of water on us. But it also brought a lot of wind. I saw 17 KN of TWS indicated. Sails needed to be adjusted.

I mounted the barber hauler at the genoa to open it to it’s maximum. Next I trimmed the main. Fortunately, my gut feeling yesterday evening told me to “dress” MaRe on her normal pajama. This was the right decision for 2 reasons. First MaRe was prepared for strong winds, second she runs better on a broad reach course because the genoa doesn’t get so much lee effect from main reefed down to 2.

Both were needed. We got winds of 25 – 27 KN TWS and needed to run a broad reach course of 145 deg AWA STB for quite a while. I even reefed the genoa according to my reefing table.

MaRe was just running fine with the down wind direction pointing exactly to Penrhyn Island. But rain was pouring down on MaRe. Visibility maybe 200 m; maybe. The wind waves got rounded by the densely hitting off the water surface by the millions of rain drops. It gives a kind of surrealistic scenario.

Once in a while I had to reset the wind vane angle of the autopilot. But that was all.

However a feeling slowly creeped in side of me and become stronger and louder. Suddenly, Shigeo, who is a Japanese native speaker, heard and understood the “peko, peko, …” coming from my stomach. He prepared a standing breakfast at the bar of MaRe . (MaRe indeed has a place call in the design “bar”. It is convenient for many things but never used as a bar.)

The standing breakfast was good. It started with a left over of a kind of stew. The base was a Knorr Instand Soup pepped up with fried meat, onions, garlic, and noodles and made spicy with pepper. Excellent. Warming up my body.

Then, board baked bread, Emmentaler, sliced chorizo, a goat cheese, and sliced tomato and, especially the rest of a Roquefort for Shigeo and, how could it be differently, cabbage salad for Shigeo was placed on the “bar”. (Let me add here the comment that I like his excellent cabbage salad but ate the tomato today.)

While we had our breakfast the wind went down in the range of 10 – 15 KN. The rain also stopped. Decision: change the reef 2 in the main sail for reef 1. Once the main with the reef 1 was really fully up, the wind was down to 2 KN of TWS. The old game. Sail up, wind down, sail down, wind up…

For a while we were more of less drifting and I was busy keeping MaRe in a position that the tiny bit of wind left over filled somehow the sails.

Finally, after really quite a while, neglecting customer satisfaction completely, Mr Wind-ow started to work and shoveled some wind to us and MaRe started slowly too move in the right direction. It was just enough that at 1200 the day distance became exactly 100 NM. What a difference to our sail from Panama to the Gambiers where he had often more than 150 NM as day distance stuff top fun fun above 180 NM. (Day distance is the distanced made good in 24 h; typically calculated from noon to noon.)

Right now we sail with an AWA of 60 deg STB and an AWS of around 10 KN at SOG of around 5 KN. We deserve this nice sailing because we had to work for quite a while.

ETA at the 1st WPT of Penrhyn, I named “PenrhynSW, is 24-09-24. Let’s see what it is tomorrow.

At end, our night was not a wonderful dream night at all, but sailing presents a huge variation of experiences.

Were are the full moon nights with the light, whitish grey cumulus clouds? Gone with the wind as we go with the wind.

Now in the middle of the night there’s a dark grey wall at about 0100 direction from us. Dark, looking impenetrable. Full of water. So full that it can’t hold it anymore and just let’s it fall down. It looks ugly red on the radar screen meaning we are approaching each other. Why does this cloud likes MaRe or me or both of us so much that it comes to us?

I don’t like it because it means changing winds and rain.

Here it is already. The first larger wind shift. The pilot monitor shows wind shift alarm. Need to go out make new settings. Can’t use the old ones; they would bring us too far N.

Only about 3 min later. Next wind shift alarm. Now we would be sailing too much towards W. New settings.

Wind speed stays still at around the lousy 8 KN TWS blowing since hours.

Midnight log book entry. Wind changed to NNE. Wind shift alarm. Again too much to W.

Where is the change on wind speed???

There was that bad guy in the past. The monkey with the tin tool. Does he plays again a bad game with us. “You want more wind?”, he asks. “No you have to stay with the lousy 8 KN.” However he continues “I’ll make wind shifts for you. As many as you don’t like!”

And here is the next wind shift. Need to point MaRe higher into the wind. 60 deg STB. Now it looks good in terms of directions. But where’s the charge in speed???

I go in the STB corner of the cockpit. The grey beast is gone. Dropped all its water into the ocean already full of water.

I look further down where we need to sail to. There is more of the dark grey staff hanging around looking impenetrable.

This morning after we had good breakfast with a muesli full of nuts and some dried fruits mixed it with fresh board made yogurt and topped out with fresh papaya, bananas, and apples.

Then, we started to talk about something which gave me the idea for this narration and it shows about the most severe punishment for Shigeo.

Shigeo is born and raised in Japan. Although he very often traveled and travels abroad, he lived all his life in Japan. Thus, he can be regarded as a real Japanese.

Back on the old samurai days, death penalty was called “seppuku”. It was considered to be an honorable way of dieing. On order of his boss or someone higher above, the delinquent performed seppuku. This was a two step procedure.
The delinquent sat down Japanese style on his heels and took off the upper part of his clothes. He then wrapped a paper around the his short sword. Behind him stood his assistant with his long sword already in back position to strike immediately. Then the delinquent took the paper wrap short sword and slit his belly open – the harakiri part of seppuku. Before he felt the pain of the open cut belly, the assistant’s sword separated the delinquent’s head from the body. Death penalty in samurai days.

However for Shigeo there is a much more severe punishment than being ordered to do seppuku.

For him the most severe punishment is to take his daily cabbage salad away. He needs it like air to breath.

Today, after the pretty good muesli with lots of nuts, fresh fruits, and board made yogurt, he ate a good portion of cabbage salad. This made me to understand the most severe punishment for him.

It was during my watch from 0400 until 0700 when I started just after 0600 to look around in the cockpit and salon, galley, and navigation table for things to be cleared up. I also put the fishing line out and wondered if we catch something with the brand-new blue-white shiny lure put on the line the day before because a rather big fish was strong enough to break the first 1 m steel leader of the fishing line.

In cockpit at STB side I found a dead guy who made it on board last night. A rather big flying fish looked at me with its dead eyes. I asked it at what time it made the touch down on MaRe but I didn’t get an answer.

I wondered if our other sleeping guest, a booby sitting on the bow pulpit, would like this dead flying fish for a pre-breakfast. Bobby’s are not shy. They keep sitting on the bow pulpit even when I do sail work there. When I could throw the fish easily towards the booby, I could see that the booby recognized “A Fish!”. However, when the dead flying fish made a hard belly landing in front of the booby, the booby recognized immediately that is only dead one. One must understand that boobies are really gourmets. They only want to eat sashimi in its freshest version. Thus, another species under the ocean’s surface got something to eat.

When I was just about cleaning the dirt of our hard landing guest, I suddenly heard the “brrrrrrrrrrr” of the fishing rod reel. A fish on the hook? I went to the rod and the line went out pretty fast. I let the fish try to escape. Then I began the games “please escape” and ” sorry but I control you”. These games are needed to exhaust the fish on the hook. I reeled in and let the line out again. With a very long line out, I blocked the reel and took the gaff and a special plier to remove the hook out of of storage. Then back to the fish and the same games again. I needed to get it tired. Next action was to go and get Shigeo as a second hand who can land the fish on board with a gaff. Fortunately he was already up and preparing for leaving his cabin.

I went back to the fishing rod and continued my game to get fish tired. Line out, line reeled in. In felt already the effect. I reeled it closer to see what’s on the hook. It didn’t appear to be greenish shining dophinfish. It also did not have the sturdy body of a tuna. Wahoo or barakuda?

When it was landed at the transition transom of the PRT stern, we saw it is a wahoo. Comparing it with my fish table this was verified.

So the day started with the surprise of catching a 1.2 m long wahoo. Thanks dear wahoo to give us fresh meat for 4 meal for the two of us. What will be the version of tonight?

When I prepare for a longer sail, I want to have canned/packed food for 3 month on board for the number of crew members.

For this, I prepared, update, and improve my provisions list for canned/packed food. Thus, I not only know what is on board and where, but i also know what has been consumed during a certain period certain number of people.

Cultural background, likes, don’t likes, allergies, etc also have an influence. One sailing companion could not eat fish, shells, etc for health reasons. My current sailing companion, my Japanese sailing friend Shigeo, loves/needs food coming out of the sea. In contrast to the European cuisine, the Japanese cuisine doesn’t know fruits to be part of a meal, but only in small volumes as desserts.

For canned fish the influence is not so much. We just bought a bunch of cans with tuna. I also still some canned mackerel on board.

Immediately prior to departure, the right amount of fruits and vegetables needs to be purchased and daily watched for what needs to be eaten next.

Yesterday, we saw that 2 mangos and the first bananas need to be eaten. Shigeo, the chef on board, comes from the Japanese cuisine, and I love Japanese cuisine. Thus we have perfect match. But he doesn’t know how to prepare a meal with fruits as a main part. So I had to take over for last night’s dinner and made pancakes. European pancakes without baking powder etc. Shigeo, always interested in new unknown recipes watched carefully how I made pancakes. While I baked the big chunk of pancakes, he chopped bananas and mangos.

Knowing him, I filled the last two pancakes with mozzarella cheese, folded them and put them back into the frying pan with only the smallest heat possible and closed it with a lid to let the cheese melt. A cheese pancake was the start. Next round was banana-peanut butter pancake, which was followed by a mango filled pancake. It was not bad.

Today, Shigeo made a light lunch and guess what he made. He took the last 2 pancake left over from last night’s dinner, filled them with cheese and served it with the today’s variation of cabbage salad.

During our lunch he asked can these pancakes also eaten with this or that. It became the main topic. Sometimes I said straight “no”. Sometimes I said “yes” but thinking a bit longer I said that I think the real Japanese version is the better one.

Being now more than 40 years in Japan, I feel that European-Japanese fusion food is not the best. However, Japanese-Korean fusion food, which I discovered on one of my many business trips to Korea, is excellent.

As Japan has the highest number of people above 100 years, the Japanese cuisine can be regarded as extremely healthy.

Topics talked about while sailing in the Southern Pacific between Bora-Bora and Penrhyn.

Just made the first entry into my log book for the brand-new day.
Wind: NE 4 Bft
Weather Sky: 1/2 (means 1/2 is covered with clouds)
Weather description: fair
Air pressure: 1018 hPa
Air temperatur: 26 degC
Sea state: 2 (means wind waves are between 10 – 50 cm high)
Sea swell: 1 (means the swell is short, less than 100 m, and less than 2 m high)
COG: 303 deg (course over ground)
SOG: 3.0 KN
Log: 2261 NM
Sail: GFBH (genoa fully out and opened with a barber hauler)
Notes: WV 110 deg S (steering with auto pilot in wind vane mode and an AWS (apparent wind angle) sweet to 110 deg from starboard) WETA: 24 Sept, Wed (ETA at next WPT (way point SW corner of Penrhyn Islands)

Beside this I ran the water maker and the tank contains 520 l of fresh water. Also batteries are charged. Generator runs and provides the power for all this.

Outside is the full moon illuminating the clouds that they and the sea appears as in a black& white picture.

I also read and wrote a few mails coming from friends via my satellite connection skipper-cat-mare@myiridium.net, my connection with family and friends.

MaRe is well on course; I just tuned the wind vane ankle from 110 deg STB to 100 deg STB. This gives us less deviation from the route line.

I also have some PC work to be done but I’m too tired. Maybe in my next watch starting at 0400.

First thing I started in my watch from 0400 until 0700 was forming and baking the bread.

When Shigeo got up, I made a maintenance/repair work at the genset. The impeller of the raw water pump needs to replaced every 500 h as a maintenance tasks. However as the impeller lasts quite longer, I wait until the impeller decides it wants to go in the trash bin. Early this morning, the impeller bit farewell and I replaced it.

MaRe moved on. Not too fast but constantly. About noon the wind weakend and came from E – SE. Time for the Big Blue.

With the Big Blue, my new gennaker, we move on in winds of an AWS of 3 -5 KN sailing a STW of 1.5 – 3.5 KN. We can not achieve this with main and genoa.

The weather forecast for today seems too be correct. Since departure from Bora-Bora we were lucky because we had more wind then the output of the various weather model runs show.

The wind waves are more than ripples but not more than 10 cm high. A short and low swell rolls on from easterly directions. Focusing on one swell and follow it as long as possible, I see millions shades of blue. Until the wave disappears towards the horizon where it falls off of the big blue disk called ocean. Whenever my eyes walk over the blue ocean until the horizon, I can understand that the old sailors were convinced that all is nothing else but a big disk.

Shigeo makes something for a small lunch.

Sitting in the helm station, my thoughts went to Captain James Cook, who sailed these waters as well. In a day like this it must have been very relaxed because there was not much to be done or it must have been very stressful because everybody wanted to reach the destination for the chance to go ashore again.These heavy vessels with their heavy sails would not move forward. These ships were only drifting on the huge blue “disk” and everyone was afraid of faking off of the disk.