Author: paulcollister

Day 11, 1st July. 39-16N, 163-45E. Daily Run: 127 NM. Weather: 25 Knots wind, rain, fog, cold. 3096 NM to go

Day 11, 1st July. 39-16N, 163-45E. Daily Run: 127 NM. Weather: 25 Knots wind, rain, fog, cold. 3096 NM to go
Yesterday the wind was on the beam and I put up the mainsail with 1 reef and 50% genoa. This worked well and the boat sped along, well balanced until the evening, by midnight the wind started gusting very strong and the sea had built to 3 metre waves. The boat was tending to round up, that is turning into the wind on the bigger gusts, the auto helm was then giving up. Around 1AM I went out into a rather rough sea and dropped the main completely, The genoa was reduced to about 25% and the boat chugged along nicely at about 5-6 knots. The wind has continued to strengthen and the seas are now about 4 metres with some cracking big waves running us over every now and then. So all in all, not a very comfortable day today.
My improvement to the sliding kitchen drawers yesterday resulted in one of the drawers ejecting itself across the galley today, the catch had stopped working, so I have a bit more sympathy for the original bodge now. The draw will need a small amount of glue applying at some point šŸ™
Today a big cargo ship passed by within a mile, pic attached, the first in a few days.
The low pressure system we were heading across was meant to go north and weaken, instead it has moved slightly east and in our way, itā€™s also squeezing up against the Pacific high making for a very windy route east if we go that way. Again the forecasts are not much use, A low or high only needs to change its course by 10deg or deepen / weaken faster or slower than expected, and the wind we experience can vary massively.
The connection to the sat phone became unplugged last night and the battery went flat on it, I expect if you are following our dots on the map, you might have seen us stop reporting. This got me to thinking that if the sat phone breaks a lot of people might worry for us, but itā€™s more likely the satphone will break before we get into trouble, and should we get into trouble we would activate one of the two EPIRBS we have on board, so I wouldnā€™t worry too much if we disappear from the map.
Currently we have passed the 25% point, but our keenness to escape the typhoon zone around Japan, meant we did great speeds then, so I would think in reality it going to be another 4 weeks sailing, arriving probably during the last week in July.
Paul Collister

Day 10, 30th Jun. 37-58N, 161-32E. Daily Run: 143 NM. Weather: Foggy and swelly. 3224 NM to go

Day 10, 30th Jun. 37-58N, 161-32E. Daily Run: 143 NM. Weather: Foggy and swelly. 3224 NM to go
This is going to get boring soon, another good daily run of 143 miles, the sky is pretty grey with fog reducing visibility to a mile or so. We should be keeping a diligent lookout, but we mostly leave that to the AIS now. I think statistically the chances of us hitting another boat are pretty low, much more likely we would hit some debris in the water. I believe bits of Fukushima are still floating around out here. ā€ØI did my usual check of the boat yesterday morning, mostly looking for chafe, and was a bit disappointed to find my once brilliant solution to a broken mast-spinnaker pole fitting, was actually sawing its way through the spinnaker pole end fitting. It had cut in about 5mm and if left alone would be through to the other side in no time at all. I squeezed a bit of leather into the area it was cutting and checking this morning, that seems to have fixed it. Iā€™m going to rig the pole up differently though, that fitting was not intended for the job. Instead Iā€™m thinking of running a rope from the fitting to the samson post, with a place, a foot in front of the mast, where I can attach the spinnaker pole, if I use a heavy rope, this should work out ok. We will see.
We gybed yesterday onto a port gybe and are being propelled by an overtaking low which may get a little stronger tonight, but then reduce, the forecasts predict light headwinds then becalming for a couple of days next week, but I have given up on these forecasts for anything more than 1 day ahead. Perhaps when we are further away from the Asian continent things might settle down. Right now a new typhoon (1807) has kicked off in the Philippines and is heading for southern Japan and onto S Korea. Itā€™s quite possible we will meet up with it in a week or so when it has died out and just become another east heading low. Right now it poses no threat to us. We have turned onto the great circle path directly to the entrance to the straits of Juan de Fuca at Cape Flattery.
My main excitement today has been that I fixed the drawers in the galley, they had been sticking and getting worse each day, I think because they are wooden runners in wooden grooves, the more damp atmosphere causes the problem due to the wood swelling a little. Itā€™s quite pleasant sitting on the cabin sole (floor) while doing a spot of carpentry 1000 miles out into the Pacific ocean. The problem was that the runners had been modified so they were closer together at the rear, making them grip more as the drawers went in. I only mention this because I hate poor engineering, and I suspect this mod was made to stop the drawers sliding out in a rough sea. That did work, but also prevented them from being opened north of 40deg, and I suspect that the reason the mod was done, was because the actual catches that are meant to stop them sliding out were broken. I, with the help of Tim a while ago fixed these catches and now I have removed the packing, everything works wonderfully. See I told you it would get boring soon.
We listen to the news on the BBC world service each night for 10 minutes, this being our only source of information on whats going on in the world, now itā€™s the weekend perhaps we will hear how England are getting on in the world cup. They have been absent from the news all week, is this down to shame we wonder? We also play a history card game that Max, our friend back in Birkenhead gave us as a present, some time ago, but specifically for our long passages. you basically hold four cards, more if you are clever, and each card has a historic event but the date of the event is on the rear of the card. The object of the game is to place your events in historic order, i.e. was the battle of Agincourt before or after the moon landing, I got that one right. Obviously some of the events are a little harder than that. So I hope that conveys some of the thrills of ocean crossings, card games and fixing the kitchen drawers!
Paul Collister

Day 9, 29th Jun, 37 – 03N, 158 – 48E Daily Run: 134 nm. Weather: Grey, and bouncy. 3362 nm to go

Day 9, 29th Jun, 37 – 203N, 158 – 48E Daily Run: 134 nm. Weather, Grey, and bouncy. 3362 nm to go
A less than stunning daily run of 134nm, but anything over 120 is fine with me.
Weather and routing: Iā€™m now getting a decent signal from the NOAA Weather transmitter at Hawaii, this gives me charts for the eastern side of the North Pacific, Japan only shows me the west and some middle. Consequently with all these charts, and the downloads I get from Predictwind.com via the satphone, Iā€™m getting a better picture of the weather systems we are encountering and how best to get to our destination. At the moment we are skirting over the top of a high, not the pacific high, thatā€™s next. This high isnā€™t moving much, but theres a low pressure above us moving ESE, but will shortly move to the north. We will hopefully hitch a ride on that as it goes north, then move east onto the western side of the pacific high, and ride that until we can smell the coffee (Starbucks I presume) of Seattle, then follow whatever winds we can, probably from the NE down into Seattle. Thinking about it, we wonā€™t smell the coffee if the wind is from the West or NE. Oh well.
Not a lot else has happened, the wind has calmed to a steady 15 knots astern, but the rolling isnā€™t great, but thats improving. Kathy continues to work wonders in the kitchen, and I found some grips for the stove today, which we had lost. They will help hold the pans in place on the gas rings. Talking of Coffee, I managed to brew some fresh, in the cafetiere today, a first on this trip, as we had been wary of breaking the glass, easily done as this is our third on this boat, and spare glass jugs are hard to come by out here šŸ˜‰ The last baguette has gone, fortunately the Japanese sliced bread is good for another year to two, not quite sure what they put in it to stop it going off, but it canā€™t be good for you.
My repair to the uphaul on the spinnaker pole didnā€™t work, it was jamming the release pins for the ends, so Iā€™m on Mk3 now, that is up and running ok, however I suspect the chafing will still come back to bite me. I also fixed the batten in the boom sailbag, he isnā€™t going anywhere in a hurry now. The wooden box/tray behind the wheel fell off, as Kathy said, this looked like a schoolboy project to start with, cheap delaminating plywood that had rotted, screwed together with non stainless screws, and mounted to the pedestal stand in a well dodgy way. I have been waiting for it to fall off for years now, just so I have an excuse to make a new one. I feel confident of my skills here, as such a box was one of our first woodwork projects at school, one of only two subjects I got an ā€˜Aā€™ grade for. It had dovetail joints, and was finished with a french polishing. Iā€™m hoping Kathy wonā€™t look at my creation and declare it to also look look a schoolboy project!
Iā€™m currently reading ā€˜Passage to Juneauā€™ by Jonathon Raben, to pass the hours. Itā€™s a great read, made better by the fact we will be following his route up the inner passage around Vancouver Island shortly, and I can drop marks on my Navionics chart at the places he describes that I want to visit. I recommend the book to anyone with an interest in Nautical travels, Nautical History, Native American history, Captain Vancouver and Discovery and the Vancouver Island area in general. I must thank John and Carol on SV Nerissa in Miri for giving me the book.
Paul Collister

Week One (by Kathy)

Week One
We left the port of Kushimoto in Japan a week ago today after a final provisioning trip (involving the townā€™s three supermarkets) for bread and fresh produce. In a departure from our normal routine, we shopped separately, each returning to the boat to deposit bags and then cycling off to get more. This method worked very well for lots of reasons šŸ˜‰ . While stowing it (and adding it to the inventory in my notebook), I became convinced we had enough food for a return trip and an Atlantic crossing as well!
Anyway, as I type this on Thursday 28th June, I note that the conditions are the same as those we experienced once out into the open sea on the first day of our passage. Itā€™s cool, cloudy and we are rocking from side to side. Waves are rolling in from the south and hitting the starboard side with some force. On that first day, I wrote that the wind propelled us along and we made good progress, which is happily still the case. Paul said earlier that we are about a fifth of the way now, which if things continue as they are shaves a week off the original predicted time.
This first week has been all about adjusting. Implementing the four hour watch system didnā€™t really kick in until a few days into the trip. This was mainly due to Paul needing to work on the sails and fix one or two things early on, making it tricky to keep a strict four hours on, four hours off when things needed sorting during my watch. There were also shipping lanes to negotiate, and some huge fishing vessels that Paul had to steer us round when their lights made me lose perspective in the dark. These obviously petered out, the further away from the coast we got, and now itā€™s quite exciting when a ship pops up on the AIS (usually about 60 miles away). Weā€™ve also had to adjust to an erratic sleep and meal regime. I imagine itā€™s a bit like working night shifts and feeling rather disorientated until the body gets used to it. Early on, I found it difficult to sleep at 8am after doing the 4am watch. I wanted my usual morning coffee and I knew that would keep me awake which would would then make it hard to be alert for the midday watch when I craved snoozing. Itā€™s also strange to be feeling hungry for ā€˜breakfastā€™ at 3am. I have dealt with the irregular meal times by simply eating little during the day and preparing a meal for both of us to eat at 7pm. Gradually, weā€™ve learned to be flexible about watches and make the most of the fact that one of us is invariably wide awake while the other is feeling drowsy. Itā€™s working well so far, and in truth the watches are easy at this stage (easier for me than Paul I know).
A more literal adjustment concerning time has been moving it on an hour. I found it disconcerting one morning to see that the sun had already risen by 4am, when previously it hadnā€™t been until much later. Consulting the chart, we put ourselves onto Saipan time which is in the Australian time zone. Moving an hour forward will continue periodically throughout the trip, which is what we did on the Atlantic crossing to avoid confusion.
The days in-between this lurching from side to side on a rough sea have seen us enjoying/experiencing beautifully calm, sunny days, warm evenings, torrential rain, foggy afternoons and the up and down motion of the boat pitching from from stern to bow. All of this is familiar to us and completely expected. Itā€™s a challenge to do things sometimes but one that I quite relish – like pitting my wits against the jerking and shoving to produce a meal for example. Both of us continue to watch for whales but have yet to spot any. There have been lots of birds, though. Big, and brown and white in colour, they circle and glide and swoop all around the boat, increasing in number as the day goes on. Paul thinks they associate boats with fish being thrown over the side and are waiting to dive for it (thereā€™s not much chance of that happening on this boat šŸ˜‰ ). Today, though we havenā€™t seen a single one.
All in all we are coping well and enjoying the passage. Paul fixes things as they break, which have thankfully only been minor things. It made me smirk last night when he used the word ā€˜whenā€™ as opposed to ā€˜ifā€™ during a conversation about things breaking. I confess that I miss news from home, chatting with family on messenger and the instant information the internet provides when you just have to know something, so spoiled have I become by online distractions. The upside is there is all the more time for reading. Iā€™ve gone from having six or seven books on the go to ten or more, which includes those on Audible. Audible is wonderful for a trip like this; no lights needed, no reading glasses needed, and that blissful comfort of having a story read to you.
Hopefully by the time I come to write about the second week, weā€™ll have seen whales or sharks or dolphins and will still be zooming across the Pacific a lot faster than we anticipated. Iā€™ll also elaborate a bit more about provisions and the challenge of cooking meals in ā€˜bucking broncoā€™ conditions.
Kathy

Day 8, 28th Jun, 36 – 25N, 156 – 01E Daily Run 167 nm. Weather, Grey, and rough. 3485 nm to go

Day 8, 28th Jun, 36 – 25N, 156 – 01E Daily Run 167 nm. Weather, Grey, and rough. 3485 nm to go
We have now been at sea for 7 days, 7 days since we cast off in Kushimoto. We have travelled 877 miles, out of 4632, leaving 3485 to go, so we are 20% of the way.
I must say it feels more like 3 days than 7, often the days blur together, last night I was up for a lot of the night worrying about the sails and mast and trying to make sense of the weather, consequently, I donā€™t have a normal concept of the start and end of a day. ā€ØIf we can maintain these sort of speeds, which I think unlikely, we will indeed take another 4 weeks or less to reach our destination. A quick check on fuel, water, gas and food shows us to be well stocked.
The wind continued to increase on the starboard bow yesterday until it was around 20-25 knots. This made for an uncomfortable passage as the waves grew in size as well and we were pounding a bit into the sea. I had put the mainsail up to make the most of the conditions, something that is needed when going upwind. However by the time I came to take the genoa in, due to the force of the wind, I found it was too late and had to winch hard on the furler to douse it, unfortunately this put the sail on too tight and I ran out of furling line. So I had to content myself with a small headsail of about 1 metre for the next day, with its sheet sitting in the way of the staysail. However with the main and staysail, we chopped along at a decent 6-7 knots for most of the day and night. By the early hours, as the sun was rising I was able to put the staysail away and let out more genoa as the wind had turned behind us. I also brought the mainsail down, this had been bothering me, firstly the batten in the sail bag/lazyjack bag was trying to escape aft, it has tried this before and I thought I had sewn the strap on well that retains it, but it has ripped it apart. Secondly there was a groaning sound coming from the mast as we rolled and the big gusts hit us. I spent an age at the mast, being thrown around trying to find the root of the noise, but I came to the conclusion itā€™s a halyard vibrating inside the mast. More investigation is needed when itā€™s a bit calmer. The current setup with just a genoa flying at the front of the boat with the wind on the starboard quarter works well, and there are only a few things to break.
We have passed 155 deg W which is the point I had in mind to start our turn towards the great circle path that takes us to Seattle. The great circle path is the shortest distance between to points on a sphere/globe. However when the same route is plotted on a normal mercator projection chart, it looks like a big arc going way off course. (Pic attached). So I have started edging towards that route, but only slowly as I want to try to stick closer to the currents for a little longer. By tomorrow we should be aiming directly at the Juan de Fuca straits some 3500 miles away. All we have to do now is follow the winds keeping as close to that route as possible. Our main consideration is to ride over the top of the Pacific High, thatā€™s a high pressure weather system, not the latest Californian trend. However I donā€™t know where it is yet, thats a job for later.
Other than that, not a lot to report. we spend our days when the weather is like this just lazing around, trying to read, and downloading wx forecasts. I have put off the water maker repair until its calmer, we put the clocks forward an hour, Kathy didnā€™t like the sun rising at 3AM. We are now on Chamorro Standard time.
Paul Collister

Day 7, 27th Jun 2018, Pos 36 – 13N, 152 – 45E Daily Run 163 nm. Weather, Breezy and Sunny.

Day 7, 27th Jun 2018, Pos 36 – 13N, 152 – 45E Daily Run 163 nm. Weather, Breezy and Sunny.
Yesterday the wind dropped down to zilch, so on went the engine for 14 hours until the early hours of today when the wind started to pick up. With the engine running at 1500RPM, it doesnā€™t use much fuel, less than 2 litres an hour, but with the 3 knot current we make about 6-7 knots SOG. We have about 1 days supply of fuel we can play with if the wind drops again, the rest Iā€™m keeping for emergencies and for docking.
We are sailing across the top of a high pressure system, and although this makes for lovely weather and calm seas, it does little for the sails. Today we are further south than this time yesterday, this feels wrong, but it suits the weather patterns we expect, there is a strong low coming our way but passing further north. Mostly we are here for the Kuroshio current, the West Pacific version of the Gulf Stream. I downloaded the latest position of it yesterday over the SSB Wefax and was surprised to see it was really close to us, it had moved from a week ago when I last checked, and it meanders south a bit before turning North. So I decided, given the light winds, that we would motor along the path of the current. The Japanese charts shows it stops abruptly around 160E but in reality I think it swings north to north east and joins up with the Aleutian current. Iā€™m hoping this coincides with our change of course. Part of the reason for going east and not following the shortest route to Seattle from Japan is the typhoon season. Typhoons also want to go to Seattle and seem to take the shortest route up the coast of Japan following the great Circle route before curving away East into the Pacific and weakening, getting whacked full on, offshore by a typhoon is going to make my diet coke far to fizzy for me, so we are heading east, in order to put ourselves as far away as possible from the typhoon path. As it stands now, we are in a good position, given that it will take a few days from the creation and announcement of a typhoon, to it reaching us, and given that within a few days we will be beyond the normal reach of the typhoons, we are relatively safe. ā€ØStatistically we have gone from around a 2-3% chance of meeting one, to much less than 1% I would guess. So going east with this current helps get us into a safer place, but also lifts our speed massively. Yesterday we managed 163 nm which is good for no wind and the engine running quite slow.
Damage Report: Not a lot to report, however the plan to leave the spinnaker pole hoisted backfired, I went up to move it out of the way this morning and as I was man handling it, the up-haul attachment snapped, the pole, and itā€™s a heavy thing, came flying down, went over the side, but didnā€™t get far as there are so many attachments to it. It was quite a shock, it happened so quickly and could easily have had someones eye out šŸ˜‰ Anyway, the wire strops from each end of the boom meet around a stainless steel ring in the middle to where an uphaul rope is attached. The wires had chafed through, one completely, the other close behind. For some reason I had thought that wire on steel would be quite chafe proof, but not so. The wire should really have been in steel eyes. I have rigged up a solution that should work, but for now we are sailing close hauled so itā€™s not needed. I have attached 2 pictures showing the problem. All in all I think the pole setup is a disaster, I wanted to change it all in Asia, but itā€™s impossible to get the fittings there unless you have them shipped in. Itā€™s all going over the side at the next port we reach! We have a lot of birds following us and circling us, I said they looked like seagulls but a bit grey, Kathy thinks the might be more exotic and that they may have been offended by my common reference. They circle the boat constantly and are growing in number. I wonder if Hitchcock did this passage? Today I will have a go at fixing the water maker, however as the wind/waves/speed increase on this close hauled tack, delicate working gets less likely. Kathy, in between her proper watches, as apposed to my alarm clock based system, continues to provide excellent food and today we may finish our last (freshen in the oven) baguette. My Philippine bought Edam cheese, although a bit hard is very tasty.
I assume everyone realises we have no web access so I canā€™t see or respond to any replies to the blog, but donā€™t let that put you off, we look forward to reading them when we reach our destination.
Paul Collister

Day 6, 26th Jun 2018, Pos 36 – 23N, 149 – 25E Daily Run 145 nm. Weather, Breezy and Sunny.

Day 6, 26th Jun 2018, Pos 36 – 23N, 149 – 25E Daily Run 145 nm. Weather, Breezy and Sunny.
Weather forecasting is proving to be impossible, Yesterdays predicted flat calms turned into decent winds on the port beam, and have stayed that way for the last 20 hours or so. I think we are under the influence of a high pressure system now, hence the stability, sunny skies, and quite calm sea. We have only been ambling along at 5 knots, but today that picked up to 6 and then the current appeared again at 3 knots giving us a healthy daily run of 145 nm On the good news front, the batteries coped easily running the auto helm through the night. I switched it to a less aggressive setting which might have helped a bit. I also made 20 litres of water yesterday while it was nice and calm, we currently make the water into 10 ltr Jugs and then decant them into the tank, that we we have better quality control, also I havenā€™t finished the plumbing yet to eliminate the jugs. On the bad news front, at some point in the night during Kathyā€™s watch the auto helm lost the plot and decided to take us in 360 deg circles, I power cycled it several times, as this sometimes helps, but that made no difference, then while I was pondering, it just started working again. Kathy was happy to assume we were all ok now, Iā€™m wise enough to electronics to know that this a problem that will return soon enough. However I also know itā€™s most likely going to be due to a bad connection or a dry joint somewhere, something I can probably find and fix. The other bad news is that today when I tried to make more fresh water, the machine failed to produce any. Again, I know this machine inside out and Iā€™m pretty sure this is down to an air lock or restriction in water flow somewhere, nothing too serious, but we donā€™t really need it as we carry plenty of water, I will get onto this job later.It was reluctant to start yesterday, but when I bypassed the raw water filter and turned the pressure bypass switch on, then reversed the process it was fine. We had a fantastic sunset, moonset and sunrise last night and this morning. The sea is lovely and clear here and yesterday I spotted a huge plume of water shoot out of the sea only 50-100 metres away from me, this was a classic disney style whale water spout, sadly I didnā€™t see the whale. I expect we will see them soon.
I sent emails to a few family and friends but got no reply over the last few days, this may be because I had the wrong address in the reply to field, could you please reply again using the myiridium.net email account I have.
The engine has been off now for the last two days, and with our average speed higher than I expected, I think our 6 week voyage may only end up lasting 5 weeks. We dread turning up in America and having to throw away food we didnā€™t get to eat, like some of the nicer cheeses, saying that, Iā€™m off to try some Edam I got in the Philippines.
Paul Collister

Day 5, (12:00 25th June 2018), Pos 35 – 52N, 146 – 40E Daily Run 176 nm. Weather, Calm and Sunny

Day 5, (12:00 25th June 2018), Pos 35 – 52N, 146 – 40E Daily Run 176 nm. Weather, Calm and Sunny.
Yesterday was meant to be very calm all day according to the forecast, however within a few hours of posting the blog we had strong winds from astern, The sea was a bit more stable and we took off like a rocket, we were doing 7 knots over water at a minimum, and we had a good 3 knots of current, by 18:00 the waves were big and the wind was in the high twenties, so we were belting along, averaging about 9 knots over ground, often registering 12 knots on the GPS as we were pushed by the waves. Kathy thought it was a bit too much, but I was happy as when I rechecked the forecast, it had it right now, and the weather was going to peak that evening. Also with the waves and wind being strong, but steady on the starboard quarter, the motion of the boat was quite gentle and reasonably predictable. Of course thereā€™s always one massive wave that comes out of nowhere and sends something flying inside the cabin that you didnā€™t expect. I have now packed the wooden spear away in the quarter berth were it wonā€™t be bothering Kathy again. It actually started to die down around midnight, but the big waves continued until the morning. Im glad it was dark last night, as when I could make out the waves they were big! Now we have a calm (ish) sea, and a gentle 6 knot breeze, we are making about 4 knots over ground (SOG). At the 12 hour mark, we had done 110 miles, setting us up for our first 200 mile day, but the light winds of this morning stopped that happening, instead we managed about 176nm
Casualties of the night:
1. Wind vane self steering system, the wind vane course control chain was stiff, I didnā€™t realise this and when I tried to turn it the chain snapped. I thought I had a spare, but donā€™t. I have managed to fabricate a link using the middle of a SS rivet and bending it to the right shape, however itā€™s not great and I think there is something else amiss with the system that caused it to jam. On the plus side, itā€™s only the course control, the system will steer itself, just maybe not to where we want to go. We do have the the electric autopilot, but that uses a lot of electric, and I donā€™t know if it will work in a heavy sea at night when we only have batteries. For now we will run with a mix of the two. 2. Genoa sheet. We had to gybe in the night and in the pitch black I didnā€™t see that the genoa sheet on starboard was rubbing on the lifeline, this has rather scuffed it, no big deal, but I need to be more careful in the dark to check everything.
All in all another test of the boat and it did reasonably well. Right now I have my clothes hanging out to try in the first decent sunshine we have had since leaving. Something has started generating noise that is making HF reception difficult, we found a decent signal from BBC World service last night on their East Asia service and ascertained that England still had a chance to get through to the next round, but we are yet to hear the result. We sit here with our little union jack flags on sticks eagerly anticipating the results (not really).
Paul Collister

Day 4, (12:00 24th June 2018), Pos 35 – 20N, 143 – 16E Daily Run 126 NM. Weather, Calm but grey.

Day 4, (12:00 24th June 2018), Pos 35 – 20N, 143 – 16E Daily Run 126 NM. Weather, Calm but grey.
Yesterday saw a tropical depression develop out of nowhere, and become a low pressure of 1004mb, with winds of up to 35 knots travelling at 35 knots towards us. First it was heading North, then East, then East North East. Trying to avoid it was pointless. We had about 24 hours notice via the weather reports, but the predicted track changed so much I think it would have been down to luck if we had missed it. So yesterday morning I spent checking everything was lashed down well, and preparing for the gale. The winds built through the afternoon, until we had 20 knots on the starboard beam, we were now racing along under a small amount of staysail (maybe 50%) and nothing else. Then the wind veered and dropped to next to nothing, and the sea calmed. I hoped for a minute that that might be it, but looking at the latest forecasts, I could see the centre of the low was very close to us and we could expect a bashing from it again shortly (now 1002mb from 1012 a few hours earlier). soon enough the wind picked up, then quickly switched to the port quarter, then onto the port beam. Now the waves picked up and we were being tossed around a fair bit. Too much to do anything really. I brought the sail in as it was constantly flapping around with the boats violent lurches from leaning right over to port, then to starboard, all the time heaving up and down. The rain was quite heavy now as well, so we battened down the hatches , as they say, fired up the engine and retired below. Kathy had already managed to serve up some wholesome pasta with a tomato sauce, before things got too bad. We have got reasonably good at stowing now, so little escaped inside. There were no ships around out here, some 50 miles offshore, so a quick glance at the AIS and radar every 30 minutes provided some assurance. I did spot a big shark during this, I wondered if he knew something I didnā€™t? Later in the evening when we were really getting thrown around I smelt diesel fumes. my fear was that we had a leak in one of the jerry cans strapped to the side of the deck. We have 8 in total, giving us a reserve supply of 80 litres. It was too rough and the half moon did little to light up the night, so I decided to ignore it for a bit, but the smell got worse so I donned my wet weather gear, and with the help of two safety lines, I worked my way forward to the cans which are opposite the mast on each side. Sure enough the lashings had come undone and 4 cans were lying on their side, one of them nearly empty. I guessed right away it was the one with the faulty air cap, I had fixed temporarily. At this point I found out just how slippy wellies can be on a deck covered in diesel, why had it decided not to rain during this incident! Anyway, I shouted to Kathy to get the deck lights on and power up the wash down pump, and to pass me the washing up liquid. I then re-secured the cans, squirted soap everywhere and scrubbed the decks. My sincerest apologies to all the sea life who thought the water tasted a bit off last night. It wonā€™t happen again. By 4 AM this morning the waves had reduced enough that we both got some sleep, and now they continue to diminish. My forecast tells me we have a deficit of wind planned for a few days, I wouldnā€™t mind a break from the wind or waves, but feel a bit like a sitting duck here with gale force winds able to come out of nowhere and still very much in the typhoon belt. Hence we are still burning up fuel trying to get as far east as possible. Itā€™s interesting how back home in the NW of England, we see all the weather systems arrive, mostly across the Atlantic as fully formed lows and highs, whereas here and further south is where the weather is made, and then delivered, in this case, over to the west coast of America and Canada. It was reassuring to get through that last blow without any real issues, the waves were big and the wind was in the low 30ā€™s so things can be a lot worse, but we handled that quite well. Iā€™m less bothered about what we might meet on passage now. The worst of it is the waves right now, they are hitting us from the port beam, the starboard beam, astern and sometimes a few big random waves will whack us, making the motion of the boat a real pain. … 2hours later… As Iā€™m posting this, the sea has calmed greatly and we are flying the Genoa and making 5-7 knots Easterly without the engine. All is good again.
Paul Collister

Day 3., Pos 34 – 52N, 140 – 51E. Daily Run 163NM. Weather, dreary.

Day 3., Pos 34 – 52N, 140 – 51E. Daily Run 163NM. Weather, dreary.
Iā€™m pretty sure we found the Kuroshio current last night, our speed shot up by 3 knots for a long time. Sadly I drifted too far north last night but we are back in it again getting a 2 knot lift, making our speed 6 knot+ most of the time. The wind has gone again, but we had some fine sailing yesterday and into the evening/early morning. We made a daily run of 163NM which is great, but we had the engine helping for 15 hours, we will have to stop using that in a few days with just enough left for our arrival and the odd emergency.
Japan is behind us now, although not far enough as far as the weather goes. Out of nowhere a low has developed behind us and is deepening and heading our way. We can expect a gale with winds in the 30-35 knot range and waves up to 4 metres. My watch started at 4AM today, sunrise was just after that, and I started preparing the boat. I went around the deck making sure everything was tied down well and couldnā€™t chafe, chafe being the number one problem on a passage like this. I also rigged up a rope / stay leading forward from the spinnaker pole, and one leading aft so I can keep it in position. I will be leaving the pole out all the time on this passage as itā€™s too much of a flap to hoist it up the mast and get it down. I also gybed the pole in anticipation of the expected blow.
I transferred 60 litres of fuel from cans on the deck to the tank, this being how much we have used in the last few days leaving Kushimoto. Itā€™s better to have the 60kg (approx) deep in the tanks below rather than on deck, from a stability point of view. Earlier a huge downpour passed over us and brought a little headwind, but not enough to do much with. I am keeping north of the path of the depression and hoping to pick up a bit of wind from it, but it will either miss me or run me down, we shall see. Everything else is going well, the boat is working 100% as planned, all systems seem good, and we wonā€™t see land again now until we get across the pond. We might not even see anymore ships. There is one crossing our bow now, but at 4 miles away he is hidden in the mist/fog. Kathy had fun on the midnight watch as many ships where just drifting around, making 2 knots in the current while waiting to enter the Tokyo bay area I suspect. The AIS shows them pointing one way but heading another, which is confusing.ā€ØI havenā€™t quite got used to the fact that the passage has started, but now Japan has disappeared out of site, and wonā€™t return, I think itā€™s very much a wysiwyg situation now, just sea and sky for many weeks. I think there should have been a big sign in the ocean somewhere that said
Welcome to the North Pacific Services available in 4300 miles Conditions ā€œOK to Rubbishā€ Have a nice trip
Kathy thinks she will do a weekly blog. We will move the clocks forward tomorrow, so that the sun rises and sets at a more reasonable time. Now we have the power to set whatever time we like on board. Iā€™m not sure how this works with the international dateline, some strange logic in my head says things will only be ok if we cross it at midnight! Normally we would change the clock by an hour for every 15 degrees of longitude we travel, but Japan is on such an odd timezone, that wonā€™t work.
Paul Collister.