N 05° 49.265
E 164° 30.548

… to hopp from the Majuro Atoll to Kosrae. About 500 NM trade wind sailing. Hoisting the genoa at the northern tip of Majuro, and furling it just outside of Kosrae. That’s the way the weather forecast looked when we started. However, it turned out differently.

The whole time was very squally, several a day. Then a bunch of troughs through which we had to go. They cause strong fluctuations in windspeed and direction.

Today, just after noon, the wind turned from ENE to SE. So we changed sails and use genoa and main with reef 2. Reef 2 only because there is always a chance for a squall. Now we have a wind from SSW-S and we are sailing upwind at 45 deg.

Two hours ago we had winds of 15 KN, now we have only 6-7 kn.

This is not at all trade wind sailing…

What we experience is a long sequence of local weather phenomena, which can only be recognized by clouds, pressure and wind change.

And this is sailing as well.

As for catching a fish, Tobi felt like using a strong and loud 4-letter word because a pretty big fish – we could hear this from the speed it took the line – took one of his lures. As he doesn’t give up he is using another one.

I have to say that I like to get a nice mahi-mahi dinner…

N 06° 04.148
E 165° 29.230

MaRe rocks around in a Kartoffelacker sea. (See glossary of terms. ) All sails down.

Winds speed varies between 0 and 2.5 KN. The wind direction indicator dances a ongoing walz since about an hour and will most like continue for while more.

The sea is almost glassy already and the waves are losing their energy and get lower and lower. The swell of 3 m, which we had before is down to about one meter and much less.

Tobi has his day nap; I had mine before and woke up MaRe’s movements in the Kartoffelacker sea we had just at the end of a squall with, as Tobi told me, about 25 KN of wind.

Tobi furled even the fishing line. Without speed trolling is not needed. Though we still have bonito filets, we both want to eat a mahi-mahi.

Yesteday Tobi had one almost on gaffing position when it got off of the hook. Tobi’s mouth escape series of whole hearted 4-letter words. This was the third fish which of off of the hook in one single day.

I’ll continue with writing emails and looking at the sea and dream of nice 15-25 KN wind from SE…. even a wind from NE would be fine!

As there a few new readers looking in my blog, I feel there is need to update and re-publish this glossary again.

The lasted posting in this “Glossary” series is always an updated version of the previous “Glossary of terms”.

New item is the round sail and here and there a typos corrected.

I’m using in my narrations a lot of abbreviations and special terms, which are understood by sailors. As I know that there are many people without sailing knowledge reading these narrations, I decided to add again this glossary of terms. Here you find always explanations on the terms and especially the abbreviations I’m using.

TWS – True Wind Speed – the speed measured at any position at land or at sea where the position does not move. On board of a boat this wind speed is calculated using satellite data.

TWD – True Wind Direction – the true direction of the wind. The direction from which the wind comes in the global coordinate system where N = 0 deg, E = 90 deg, etc. It is not to be mistaken with TWA, which it relative measured from the boat.

AWS – Apparent Wind Speed – the wind someone standing on a boat feels. This is the wind the sails feel, thus the wind, which drives the boat forward. It is measured on the top of the mast.

AWA – Apparent Wind Angle – the angle equivalent to AWS. It is also measured on the top of the mast

TWA True Wind Angle – the angle equivalent to AWA but recalculated using GPS data. It is the calculated angle at which the true wind would hit the boat.

STW – Speed Through Water – the speed a boat makes through the water. It is measured just outside of the hull. There is through hull in which the sensor is located. This is used to calculate the TWS from the measured AWS.

SOG – Speed Over Ground – the speed with which the boat moves over the ground of the globe. It is calculated from satellite data.

COG – Course Over Ground – the course (direction) in which the boat moves over the ground of the globe. It is calculated from satellite data.

WPT – Waypoint – point along the route a boat sails. Each WPT has a pair of coordinates that determines its position on the globe or on the sea chart (digital or paper)

BTW – Bearing To Waypoint – the direction under which the WPT is located; being seen from the boat.

DTW Distance To Waypoint – the distance of the waypoint from the boat.

PRT – Port or Port side – the left side of a boat when looking from stern to bow. Color is red. (The red heart is at the left side of a human body.)

STB – Starboard or Starboard side – the right side of a boat when looking from stern to bow. Color is green.

XTE – Cross Track Error – The distance a boat is left or right away from the planned route to the next WPT.

NM – Nautical Miles – distance unit for navigation. 1 NM is the equivalent distance of 1 angular minute of a longitudinal circle around the globe (these circles go through the North and South pole). They have all the same length.

KN Knot – a speed unit for which means the NM per hour.

As Nautical Mile and Knot are not an ISO units, they don’t have an internationally fixed abbreviation. Thus, one can find other abbreviations as well. I’m using the ones here in capital characters because they are not in conflict with any ISO units.

Sails
Every sailboat can have different sails but almost always have a main sail and one head sail.

The main sail – or short the “main” is the big 3-angular sail behind the mast.

The head sails – are always before the mast. Head sails can have different sizes and thus have different names. MaRe has 3 different head sails.

The genoa – biggest and most often used has 49 m2.

The jib sails – Only a few catamarans can fly jib sails. MaRe has two. A jib with 20 m2 and a storm jib with only 8 m. Depending on wind and direction conditions one jib can be used in combination or instead of the genoa.

Gennaker – this is huge, 123 m2, sail made out of material also used for parachutes. It is a light wind sail, which I can use for AWA from 70 – 180 deg. (For sailors: I can even fly to 150 deg on the other side with a tack height of 2 m). It is flown in the very front of the boat but can be pulled to the side as well; this depends on the AWA.

MaRe got last year a new gennaker. It’s colors are only dark blue and light blue. The dark blue color is at the edges of the sail, to get a good contrast against the sky. In the inner, light blue area it carries the name “MaRe”.

It got the nick name “The Big Blue”.

Round sail – although I have this sail since I left Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, I did not use it due to a lack of understanding of the handling of this real downwind sail. Now I got this understanding and like this sail.

It’s name comes from its shape and it’s shape comes from its original purpose. A round parachute. It’s a modification of a round parachute. The round opening of has a diameter of 8 m, so the sail has an approximate area of 50 m2.

The parachute lines are bundled in two groups. One is the upper bundle, which is connected to the gennaker halyard. The other bundle is connected to the tack line of the gennaker. There are a few details more, but I will skip them.

The sail flies in front of the bow at a height of about 10 m above the sea. The gennaker halyard is adjusted to a height that the sail never can fall into the water.

Beside the described two lines there is a third one, the retrieval line to get sail on board again when needed.

The AWA range in which this sail can be used goes from about 150 deg PRT continuously to 150 deg STB. The sail swings in front of the bow so it does not need to be gybed.

The wind speed range goes from 15 KN to 30 KN.

A genoa can only work on PRT or STB thus covers only half of the range the round sail can cover.

Also my gennaker covers an even larger range on wind directions, there is a windspeed limit of 15 KN TWS.

So the round sail is the best for within the describe limits.

Reefing a sail – or – put a reef in sail – making a sail smaller because their it’s too much wind or there is more wind to expected.

The main sail has 3 reefs plus what I call reef 0. Reef 0 is the unreefed sail. When the reef number increases, the sail is getting smaller. Reef 1 covers a large range of wind speeds; it’s used for normal daylight sailing. Reef 2 is good for strong breezes and light gales. I use it also during night to not get surprised by a squall which can have wind speeds of up to 30+ KN. Then there is reef 3, a storm sail. Fortunately I never had to use it in a storm. The only time I used it was during the last 24 – 48 h in the approaching to the Gambier islands. MaRe was running to fast with reef 2, so we changed to reef 3 to arrive later at the check points.

For the genoa there are bar marks at the foot (lower edge) of the sail. The more number of bars are to be seen, the bigger the sail is. 3.5 bars means the full sized genoa. 0.5 bars means the genoa is reduced to the size of a “handkerchief”. The finally stage is furling (rolling up) the genoa fully. The number of bars is also in the reefing table of the boat designer.

Now, you might read “we furled the genoa” – furling a genoa is a work done very often on a boat and has not necessarily something to do with strong winds. Most often it just means getting the genoa out of the way because we need to work at mast on the main sail.

The gennaker can not be reefed. For that reason I can be called a “binary” sail; it’s up or down. Like “1” or “0” in a computer.

Jib sails will not be reefed but exchanged.

The round sail is like the gennaker a “binary” sail; either it flies or is down.

Halyards – each sail has its halyard, which is a line to pull the sail up.

Sheets – Each head sail has 2 sheets. Sheets are lines with which a head sail must be adjusted to the AWA.

The main sail has only 1 sheet to adjust the sail to AWA.

Barber Hauler – a special line, which allows to open a head sail more than what is possible using a normal sheet. I use this typically when I only sail with the genoa and have winds between about 150 – 180 deg AWA.

Autopilot – it is a computer, which can steer the boat depending an information it is given and the steering mode being selected

Steering modes are:
STBY – stand-by – the autopilot returns the steering to the person at the helm and does nothing else.
AUTO – the autopilot steers the boat into a direction entered, ignoring wind and current drifts.
WIND VANE – the autopilot steers the boat in a way that the entered AWA determines the direction the boat is going. Thus, when the wind changes direction, the boat follows the new direction.
TRACK – the autopilot steers the boat to a given WPT correcting drifts by currents and wind. This mode can only be used with very stable wind directions or when the boat is running by its engines.

Directions given in hours – If one stands somewhere at the boat and wants to tell another person where there is something to be seen, the hours of clock are used. 12:00 is fixed to the bow and 0600 is fixed to the stern. The other hours are distributed around the clock.
E.g. 0300 is on STB at a 90 deg angle from the boat. 0900 is the equivalent on PRT. The others are in between on a logical order.

Compass directions – N north (0 or 360 deg)
NNE north-north-east (22.5 deg)
NE north-east (45 deg)
ENE east-north-east (67.5 deg)
E east (90 deg)
S south (180 deg)
W west (270 deg)
Between each main direction the sub directions equivalent to the ones between N and E exist.

Waves – There are wind induced waves and the swell. Wind induced waves are on top of a swell and are cause by wind closer to the boat, whereas swell is created by constant winds far away and these waves roll long distances.
(If I’m not wrong there is a good article in Wikipedia: “Douglas Scale” is a pretty good search term. )

Kartoffelacker – “Kartoffelacker” translates to ” potato field” and here the term refers to a potato field after harvesting the potatoes. It’s a synonym for the sea being fully bumpy. Thus, German speaking sailors use this term for a very bumpy sea after some clouds or squalls passed through.

I hope that the terms are understood even by non-sailor. At least this was the objective for writing this glossary of terms. Feel free to ask for additional information to reinhold@cat-mare.de.

N 06° 27.057
E 167° 26.565

The sea and the clouds are illuminated by the half moon we have tonight.

The sky just above me is almost free a clouds. Only a few cotton ball like clouds are hanging around. One is just in front of the moon, dispersing the moon light, which creates light pollution, making only the brightest stars being visible.

This moonlight also illuminated the sea. Wind waves and swell waves are very well to be seen.

I love this atmosphere. Sometimes I just want to continue sailing like this forever. But, and here is again a “but”, I will miss my OBM, kids, and grandkids.

So I’ll enjoy this special atmosphere until my looong sail comes to its planned end.

N 06° 29.753
E 168° 03.600

Just before or got dark, I decided to change the round sail for the genoa because the TWD changed to NE, forcing steering too much S of our needed course. We reach the limit of the round sail. So I decided to change the round sail for the genoa.

Tobi was cooking already so ib had to ask him to pause this.

When we were both at the bow and I just wanted to release the bow line, Tobi said, “The fishing rod”, I tought, “Good that he remembered that we were still trolling.” But o
in the next moment I heard the alarm of the reel. A fish was on the hook! Prefect we got one but why just right now?

The fish needed attention!

As discussed before I steered MaRe the way she slows down.
Tobi had a bonito on the hook. Got it in easily. I was necessary to kill the fish immediately so we could attend the sail. I poured a very strong liquor on its gills and it died instantly. Tobi cut it so the blood could flow back out of the body.

Back to the bow. Tobi took the retrieve line and I eased the bow line that the sail collapsed. Even with the collapsed sail, it was not possible to retrieve it by 4 hands. I put the retrieve line onto the mast winch and we could get it down on deck easily. We packed and stored it away.

Next genoa needed to be unfurled and trimmed with the barber hauler. An easy task.

Tobi went back into the kitchen to continue with the dinner. We had a good dinner with Japanese “udon” (thick, white Japanese noodles). Excellent. It was already about 2000 and I could finally start my last rest before my first watch.

Tobi continued with cleaning up the kitchen and fileted the bonito. I slept like a dead man until the alarm got me up.

Tobi was just completing his work. For him it was a watch without the slightest moment of boredom.

Now I’m sitting at the steering wheel, listening to sail, watching the instruments, changing the wind vane angle, trimming the genoa, and writing these lines. One hour of my first watch is gone, two more to go.

At the northern horizon the light of a working fishing boat and above me the starry sky with Orion in the center. Looking at the Milky Way with its many stars and thinking that our Milky Way is only one of millions of galaxies I wonder about life out there.

N 06° 37.504
E 168° 34.546

Good point No 1
It started already last night. During my second watch from 0400 to 0700, I prepared dough for the next bread to be baked tonight after proofing it during the day on the fridge. I observed that a long cold proof makes a good bread.

Good point No 2
Recently I did not make yogurt in the time needed and the starter yogurt turned bad.

We were lucky because Tobi found in the K&K supermarket in Majuro a plain yogurt. This should work.

So I made the normal volume of yogurt, 2 x 750 ml. In about 8 h I know how good it is.

Good point No 3
Tobi is trolling again and once he had a bite, though not successfully, it showed that the lure works.

Now the race is one. Is my yogurt is first ready or does he first catch a fish.

We both want him to catch a mahi-mahi for a change because the last fish was a 40-50 kg tuna of which there is still some confit in the fridge.

Good point No 4
The wind is pretty stable around 12-17 KN on TWS and also in direction of ENE. So we sailed for most of the day with the autopilot in Track Mode which means along the shortest route to destination. Right now in using the wind vane mode so making a bit of a wavy line.

Using the round sail was the right decision. Other wise we would have had to gybe already several times today.

Good point No 5
Wind waves went down a bit making sailing very relaxed.
We both could take additional naps to be well prepared for the night watches.

Bad point of the day.
No squall with a lot of rain is to be seen at the sky and we ran out of rain water. (We still have 400 l fresh water in the tank.)

N 06° 59.553
E 170° 07.915

When sailing on course to Kosrae, the AWA fluctuates between 150 deg PRT and 150 deg STB. This makes the usage of genoa while staying on course difficult. Flying the gennaker is not an option because the TWS varied today already from 10-30 KN. Simple too much above the limit of 15 KN for a gennaker.

So I’m flying my round sail, which I purchased especially for down wind sailing in the trade wind zone.

Today we have the perfect condition for this sail and we fly it already since hours.

I set the wind vane wind angle first to 175 deg STB and now to 170 deg STB to get a better COG towards Kosrae.

With wind waves of 1-2.5 m and a swell rolling onto the stern of 3 m height, sailing is very comfortable.

N 07° 05.960
E 170° 30.222

Last night we got hit by several squalls. Most of them stayed below 20 KN. The strongest one brought 30 KN vTWS.

A few Chinese fishing boats bothered us. Beside this it was a normal night and we made good progress despite a current in the opposite direction.

N 07° 15.419
E 171° 01.287

At 1740 we casted the lines off 1 the mooring ball. Friends from SV Alicia, and SV Seal waved farewell.

We first sailed with genoa inside the lagoon towards the pass. But then I used the engines additionally to get through the pass as early as possible.

On the way to the pass Tobi fixed a soup and then penne pasta.

I ate while sitting at the steering wheel to make sure all is under control.

Just before turning into the pass, we furled the genoa to have maximal freedom of navigating MaRe through the pass on her old track when we came into the atoll.

I used trackmode to allow the autopilot to control current and wind drift. It does this pretty good.

In the pass, the sea chart shows 6 cardinal signs, but only 3 were illuminated. That’s more than I expected. I followed my old track, thus did not depend on the signs.

Once we were out, we unfurled the genoa and trimmed it with the barber hauler. This way we reached the WPT “Majuro N” where we gybed and went on course 259 direct to the entry WPT for Kosrae, Micronesia, 490 NM away.

Although we make with wind of 11 KN about 4.5 KN STW, the current reduces the SOG by 1-2 KN. That’s not so nice, but there’s nothing we can do.

If the wind follows the forecast we get several times winds of up to 20 KN from E to ENE. That can increase our speed by about 2 KN.

As we see the lights of several fishing boats, most likely only from China, we check radar every 20 min to make sure that we don’t meet a Chinese fishing boat without an AIS running.

N 07° 06.369
E 171° 22.344

… waiting for Tobi to come in the little harbor where I docked the tender when we made inbound clearance.

Today, first I made my last 2 h dive to clean the rest of the PRT hull. Both hulls a very clean and I hope MaRe makes 6.1 KN under engines with cruising RPM and no wind or wind abeam. That would be nice and result in a fast sail to Kosrae.

Thereafter, we took the tender to the ESE dinghy dock and went first to the Port Authorities to pay USD 10.- port fees; the first station for the outbound clearance procedure. But then the immigration odyssey started.

We went to into an office with “immigration” written above the entrance door. There, we where told that we need to go to different office a bit further down the road. When we arrived there we where told we need to go to the office a bit further up the road. We tried to find this office and asked a police officer sitting in a car along our way. They brought us back to the place where we were before. This time we learned that we have to wait for an hour until an officers comes, which is a different story than the one we were told before.

As we were hungry we wanted to use this 1 h for a quick lunch and went to Annie’s Bakery which we saw before opposite the other immigrating office, which is not on charge of our outbound immigration matter.

After lunch, we went to customs just 100-200 m away. Tobi read in No-Foreign-Land that the office is in the first floor. We went there just to be told that it’s in in the ground floor. There was the customs office! Within 5-10 min we had our second outbound clearance document; this time from customs.

Immigration officers where are you???

We went back to the immigration office where we were very first. The information we got was, “An officer is coming”. “When?” I asked and got the reply, “In a minute”. “Wonderful!” I said and thought “I’m even willing to wait 10 min of needed. “

Within a minute an officer came to bring us, by car, to the office at the dock for smaller inter island freighter around the corner where MaRe turns around her mooring ball.

As we had the tender close to K&K supermarket the officer offered us that one come with him and the other goes shopping and takes the tender back and picks up the other in the little harbor at the immigration office.

We took this offer. Tobi got off at K&K, to get the food we need and he knows, whereas I went with the officer. The officer was a very nice guy and we talked about sailing etc.

Within 10 min after arriving at his office I had the outbound clearance stamps on our passports.

Ready for official departure.!!!

I’m still sitting in the dock of the bay… waiting for Tobi to pick me up.

Looking at my watch I guess it will be 1700 as we considered as realistic departure time. We get off of the mooring ball to sail at daylight through the pass out of the Majuro atoll, to turn SW to Kosrae at the northern end of the atoll where we spent 16 days nice days including Christmas and New Year.