I’m sitting in the very comfortable outside dining room of the Waikiki Yacht Club, on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Because of internet, phone and electricity, I am not too hot, able to maintain my life administrative duties (taxes, subscriptions, etc.) and keep in touch with family and friends while being here. What a luxury!
A full moon in the big city. Waikiki Yacht Club poolside.
We arrived by sailboat exactly one month ago, after finishing respectably in the Transpacific Yacht Race (a sailboat race from Los Angeles to Honolulu). I say respectably because we were not last across the finish line (although we were last overall with our handicap). We’re not really a racing sailboat, in type nor mission, obviously. Anyway, the point is, we arrived here by sailboat. On our 2500-mile trip, with 8 crew total, we broke some things, learned some things, ate some things and thought many, many things (Are we there?” yet chief among these).
Now, we are readying the boat and crew to sail back to the mainland. It is just as strenuous a journey, but there won’t be an arrival committee to give us Mai Tais and leis, or a departure boat recording our start when we leave. It’ll just be us chickens, and I’ll let my dad know via intermittent satellite texts, where we are and how we’re doing. The crew is reduced to four: the owner and his son, Jesse, my husband and me, Samantha. As we’re not racing, we will have the benefit of autopilot, so that’s almost another crew member.
This passage will take us north, nearly to the Canadian border, then east, as we sail around the North Pacific High. This particular weather feature is a big area of high pressure conveniently located directly south of the Gulf of Alaska, and, depending on the time of year and the vagaries of weather, it will be at a latitude north or south of central Oregon. The winds spin clockwise around high pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere, so our course north from Hawaii will trace the western edge of the high, and then we will bear away east as we go over the top of the high.
Here is a picture of the high, circled in yellow, on a surface analysis chart for the Pacific (thank you NOAA):
Here you can see that the high is quite wide. Ideally for our passage the two H’s would be closer together.
The option to motor across the high, where the winds are light, is a possibility. That path would be shorter, probably shaving 5 days off our passage. But that brings its own risks: if you have any engine problems, there isn’t quite enough wind to make way, leaving you at the mercy of the ocean until the high moves up or down, thus taking longer than it would have to sail, and you have burned more fuel, which means the time available to run the water maker and generator is reduced.
We like the self-sufficient notion that we have onboard the tools and skills to solve most problems that happen. Mikmaks also has a lot of redundancy built into her systems. Redundancy is the comforting idea that if something fails, another solution is available because of how the system is designed. A good example of this is the steering system – if the wheel came off the binnacle, we could still steer using the autopilot.
Chris Hatfield, a Canadian astronaut who spent a year at the International Space Station, wrote a book called the Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. It’s a great read. In the book, he talks about how astronauts prepare for emergency situations. They start by trying to think about EVERYTHING that could go wrong. Then they plan for those situations. This takes the uncertainty out of the picture, which means astronauts can stay relaxed and focus on the task in front of them. They already know what to do if things go wrong, so they don’t need to figure it out in a panic. I like and use this type of planning. Thinking about the worst that could happen and then knowing what you would do in those situations makes the worst situations manageable.
To stretch the steering example into astronaut thinking - if we lost both the autopilot and the manual steering, we could use the emergency tiller and steer. If we lose the rudder - and a boat in the 2019 Transpac did indeed lose their rudder – now that starts to be a big deal. But, because we take self-sufficiency preparation seriously, if the rudder came off, we would troubleshoot the problem, plug the hole, and take action to steer the boat using a jury-rigged tiller (probably the spinnaker pole) or using drogues off the stern to turn the boat. We have dive gear, two manual pumps installed in the boat, a handheld pump, and numerous ways to plug holes. If that didn’t work, and the boat was taking on water that we could not evacuate from the boat, we would deploy our emergency life raft and probably our dinghy and our ditch kit and declare Mayday and activate our EPIRB and rescue protocols. There. We’ve thought of it, worked through the problem and have a plan.
Our pre-departure readiness list looks like this:
-systems in good working order with redundancies built in and functioning
-sails in good working order, especially heavy weather sails and reefing points on the main.
-lots of food in several forms – fresh, frozen (such a luxury, a freezer on board!), canned and dried. Freeze-dried meals are good in a pinch, but no one wants to eat them every day. We generally plan to have food for 2x the longest time estimate for our passage – in this case, 6 weeks.
-crew rested, in good health and mindset.
-Fuel and water tanks full, black water tank empty, batteries fully charged and engine, water maker and generator test run the day before departure.
-administrative items complete – information for the next marina, contact info and emails sent, instructions to family and friends about getting satellite texts (from strange numbers), and downloading any content not readily available while at sea.
-weather forecast good for the passage – don’t leave in bad weather. Your bad weather may not be the same as others. Our boat is very happy in an 8-10’ following sea in 25 knots.
-keep in mind that having to sail upwind back to your departure point will take longer and be harder on crew and equipment …3 days downwind sailing does not equal 3 days upwind. 8-10’ seas in 25 knots is NOT pleasant upwind sailing.
- settle up with the marina before you leave.
-boat shipshape, items stowed for sailing (loose items stowed, heavy items tied down and secured)
-folks that need to take meds for seasickness should start 12-24 hours prior to departure.
-satellite comms tested, operational and fully charged. **make sure your subscriptions are paid up**
We’re nearly set to depart Honolulu now. A hui ho – until we meet again, Hawaii friends. Talk to you on the flip side.
Samantha