SHTP Stories - July 5th

July 5th - I sleep on deck that night. Not because I have to but because I enjoy it. The temperatures are mild, the deck is dry and even though I can't see any stars, it is a wonderful feeling to be out there in the open. I can sense the immensity of the ocean. The boat is slow. I am looking at a depressing 5 knots of boat speed. Fortunately I am sailing in the direction of Hawaii but I probably haven't selected the right course. 

I could check the weather forecast, but just like the forecast we looked at the day before the race, it might be all wrong. And if I go down below and connect to email, I am worried that I will get more bad news about that personal situation and I am not sure I want to get into that yet. I will certainly have to do that soon though. 

When I get up I feel grumpy. Not tired. Just grumpy. That part of the trip, I slept very well and had no power problems since the autopilot was operating with very low gain and using very little power. Mr Fusion still has plenty of methanol in the first jug and I have one entire spare jug with me. At that pace though, it will take me a long time to get to Hawaii so I might have to think about plan B for electrical power.

My wristwatch is dead, full of water. It was an old Timex. Fortunately I have a second one. I put it on and the band breaks. Great. I stuff it in my pocket. I will be checking the time only very occasionally.

Grumpy. Probably lack of coffee. but I resist caffeine. I also have learned through experience that when I feel down on a boat it usually because I need food or sleep, or both. Since I don't feel tired at all, I try food. Some 'Nutella on the go', can of fruit, bagel and honey and apple juice. Transformation into Iron Man.

I decide to wash my hair. I rinsed my hair after things got dryer but it is becoming sticky. I have some of this REI 'do not rinse shampoo'.

The operation is kinda successful except it doesn't last as long as regular shampoo as I will soon find out. I still use baby wipes every day all over my body, body cream and aloe at night. Everything is cloudy now though so the temperature during the day feels much better.

Cleaning up in the morning is a great ritual - it cleanses more than just the body. I know that Tabarly had his ritual of making one good meal in the evening. Pete Goss would make cups of tea all the time. Perhaps washing up is my daily ritual.

After I get all set up, I drop the twin sail and set up the kite. When I do this I think of Skip who had estimated 15 minutes to change sail. In the light stuff I didn't use the spinnaker net so it would take me a lot less. I would remove the poles from the twin sail, then pole out the guy from the spinnaker, hoist the spinnaker behind the twin sail, then drop the twin sail to the deck then sail the spinnaker. when comes the time to drop the kite, I would hoist the twin sail, then pole out the windward side of the twin sail, then drop the kite and go. That way, I'd always have a sail up. Any sail change is absolutely exhausting so I now try to keep those to a minimum. I call them 'overhead'. The reality is that single handed, you just can't race as hard as full crew. With a full crew, you can change sail every 15 minutes if you have to. Single handed, you look at average over a few hours and maximizing the bank for your buck.

I would then rig the spinnaker net on the forestay and hoist it. Sometimes, things would go wrong. Like that morning. In the picture above, the guy is led under the lifeline. The wind was light so I just took the load on the guy with my hand and re-ran the aft part of it to correct the situation.

I gybe South and decide to sail in the new direction (not quite to Hawaii) for the day, in the hope of getting a bit more wind. I have done this mechanically. Today I am just enjoying being out there. It is a pleasant sail. The ocean is beautiful. I feel lucky and I have no desire for this to end.

I have set up the kite to have fun. I want to minimize sail changes.

This means hand steering, just like Skip had said. This is what it looks like when the autopilot is driving.

The kite collapses. This is what it looks like when I am driving. This could be because I don't have apparent wind mode available to the autopilot because I have broken my wind instrument. however, given the shifts, in apparent wind mode, I'd be zigzagging all over the ocean which may not be good enough. The alternative is to over trim and go way higher to keep the kite full artificially by building even more apparent wind that is required. I try this and I can sleep with the kite up for an hour in the afternoon. I stay in the cockpit so I am ready in the event that the boat needs help. My only anxiety comes from autopilot failure...The rest, even loss of boat, I figured I can handle just fine but that would be frustrating as it wouldn't be an emergency but would keep me in a very boring state for a long time. That said, Tabarly won a transatlantic race with a broken autopilot, broken on day 2 I think, so I guess I should just quiet down and sail.

I have lunch - I still eat one orange a day, two eggs and two yogurts a day. An apple a day. A bagel a day. And the rest depends on what I have taken with me. Tomatoes, canned vegetables (green peas!!! I love them). Cheese. All I am eating at that time is still fresh food and I am enjoying it thoroughly.




Even though it is light, I keep my harness on and I clip in. Not really fancying being killed by an autopilot, driving the boat away from me if I fall in the water.

I try to call Nathan and family on the sat phone but there is no signal. Good to know that in some places, there just isn't reception. I am starting to see tropical birds every day, they seem to be following me and play around in the fore triangle, or between the main and the backstay. Maybe there is some draft that's funny for them in there, just like dolphins would play in your wake.

My mind is still not racing. My thoughts are busy with uncertainty and projecting out all sorts of scenarios. I place a call to find out what the situation is like and come back with an horror story. I try to forget for the rest of the day by flying the chute. My favorite activity. The conditions haven't changed, still challenging and light air and I have to stay quite high in order to keep the kite full but it takes me South faster which suits me fine.




Darn, the tylaska shackle opens up on the guy side and before I know it I have a free flying kite. I decide to take it down and reset. I hate it when that happens. It is at least the third time that I have that. The entire operation exhausts me and I spend 30 minutes recovering in the cockpit before I hoist the kite back up.

I finally manage to get a satellite phone connection and speak with Nathan. I learned about Domino's rudder issues and I am super super bummed for David. I feel really sad. It must have been so hard having to come back. I also learned that Mouton Noir has turned around because of seasickness. I would have thought that Mike would be immune to this given the type of boat he is sailing. Strange. I know that Mike is a race veteran and I am sure that he waited a lot before making that decision. I don't feel so bad about him although it too must have been a huge bummer.

I spend some time trying to take video. I have a cheap camera and it is tough to get it to stay stable but the wind is so light that I manage to get some decent footage. Posted here for your enjoyment.


The boat is only going 6 knots in the light breeze but the forward movement and the need to stay on top of the wind shifts keeps my mind focused and I enjoy it. The temperature is pleasant, I drink a lot of Pellegrino and I do my daily fix. I record my position, course over ground, general sea and wind state through observation and boat speed over ground. This would help if all my instruments failed and I had to figure out where I was. I also check the time so I can estimate progress if I cannot do another fix. I also estimate a couple of days before I am at the half way point at this rate.

In the afternoon from time to time I hit 7 knots. Not great but definitely progress!

At night, I keep the kite up until I collapse, around 2 in the morning. I eat steering with my feet eating peas out of a can with some of this nice hot sauce that Nathan bought for me.

The temperature is so nice that I decide to sleep on deck. All I need is a fleece, neck warmer and long pants. I have misplaced the headlamp that Nathan gave me for the trip. It is dry so I can use the other one but I need to go look for it.

I am not using the bucket nor the pee bottle anymore. I just go overboard, holding the hand rail with two hands, clipped in with the short part of the tether. I keep toilet paper on deck in a ziploc bag, in one of the sheet bags. Easy to retrieve.

My hand held GPS is showing signs of life. It turns on and then turns itself off. Still completely useless so I use the boat one.

I think back about the first few days. I hadn't sailed in that much wind in a long time. Happy the boat did well. I decide to try to get weather info. I turn on the computer, get email to work but before I send any, I receive gloomy news by email and I decide to turn the computer off again and kill the satellite link. At least it works.

At night the wind lightens up even more and it is becoming too difficult to keep the kite full, or I have to give up a lot of degrees. I try some trigo math to figure out if I am better with twin sails, give up and decide to use the twin sails with the AP while I sleep. I switch sails which tires me. Nathan is now sending me position reports via SMS. I receive them and ignore them for now.

I need to take my gloves off. I have bloody wrists as the gloves rubbed against my wrist. Not an issue as it is now light air and there are clouds to mask the sun.

Boat speed is depressing which causes me to revisit my personal situation.

Three fingers of my left hand are hurting. I look at them and it looks like some of the minor cuts around the nails that I have done in the first few days are getting infected. Red and puffy, swollen. I need to do something about it. I just put regular band aid with neosporine on it. That doesn't stick for very long. I clean it up with just soap and fresh water and decide to wait until the following morning to see if more treatment is required. I don't really want to have an infection on my hand. This is still minor and local and I should be able to treat it easily. I have all the local antibiotics I need in my floating hospital.

Boat speed in this light air with twin sails is actually quite similar to that of the boat with the kite up and the angle is better. And driving in these conditions is super tiring mentally so I decide to fly the twin sails for the rest of the night even after I wake up.

Earlier int he evening I had checked the connection for the big solar panel and that one looked kaput too...

However, monitoring Mr Fusion seems to give me all the amp hours I need so I decide to do nothing further about the situation at this time, except monitoring it. I anticipate the wind to pick up at some point and I might run the cable of the solar panels straight to the batteries then.

Have trouble sleeping that night. Not because I am not tired but because of bad dreams. Strange. I walk around deck as it is soothing and I go back to sleep. I put the timer on 60 minute intervals.