lots to think about…
Alex Mehran does some pondering from the Open 50 Truth on his way to Hawaii in the Singlehanded Transpac.
It has been an interesting twelve hours on Truth. Yesterday we ran under the masthead A2 (big kite) in 8-10 knots of wind for what seemed like an eternity, but around 8pm a band of serious looking clouds lead me to taking that down and running bare headed for an hour or so. It is funny in the Pacific – you get these clouds in the late afternoon hours and with the sun setting in front of you they often look very scary. Having had a day of sailing that was a bad reminder of the light wind Transpac last year, I hesitated to drop the kite thinking it was just a light rain shower with no wind in it. I was wrong and it was a good thing that big boy was safe down below!!
Crossing the cloud line we got some serious breeze, but then it settled down to 15-20 for the night. I put the 280 sq. meter A4 up as a night kite and it was a real winner. The extra 20 sq. meters on the A2 are all in the shoulder of the sail which makes it much less stable. This A4 is the rig we went down the Molokai Channel with last year, so I know it can handle 25 no problem. The biggest thing was trying to sleep going 15-18 knots and trusting the pilot. I haven’t sailed solo too much and have never had to sleep going those speeds. Bottom line is you don’t get much!
First I woke up thinking about getting more stability and added some ballast. Then it was the thought of a collision with something in the water and I went around and closed up all the watertight bulkheads (5 hatches). Then around 2am I started thinking about a flying gybe and stowed all my gear and tied down the laptop. Then I passed out from exhaustion and luckily none of those things happened!
Had a nice chat with Merf this morning which is always nice – just wanted to let him know his baby is safe! All good out here. 1150 miles to go. Track ’em here.
