Day 13 - Pacific Crossing - 4th April

4th April: 15.20 (Add 7 for UTC)
Course needed: 264
Course steered: 250-270
Speed: average 5.3 knots
Miles sailed: 1479
Miles to go: 1552
Lat: 7° 26'S
Long: 113° 09'W
Wind: 9-15 apparent, 150 true?
Plan: Sail direct for Hiva Oa


"Tomorrow? A biblical day. Fishing and bread making if all goes to plan." Well, so much for that plan. I couldn't be arsed to fish and by the time I was ready to make bread we decided it was better for breakfast so I'll make it tomorrow.

I'm pleased to report another trouble free 24 hours. Winds 10-16 knots which is on the border of the top wind for parasail recovery should it strengthen so we've stuck with white sails. Only getting 4.5 knots with main alone at 100 degrees off the wind we needed another sail. But we're wary of using the yankee until it is properly fixed. So we tried the staysail. Much vibration. Not good for the stay. "Let's tighten its halliard" says Gilly. Great difference and we're now making 5.5 knots instead.

However, here's a question for all you proper sailors. I discovered today that our little used autopilot shows rudder angle. We are on a port tack 100 degrees off the wind and the rudder angle is (assuming the autopilot is correctly calibrated) 22 degrees to starboard. That seems a lot and presumably slows us. How do we go faster?

Late tonight we will be halfway. But what is halfway? In actual fact we might be more than halfway or less in terms of miles sailed as we never sail in a direct line from point to point. We know it was 3002 miles from Santa Cruz to Hiva Oa. And we know we will have sailed more than 1501 when we have 1501 left. So we say halfway is when we still have half the original direct miles left to go!

Not much to report today so here's a list of what we have in the cockpit. This is where we spend just about all our time if we are not cooking, washing, sleeping, making water or looking for things in which case we will be down below......

7 ropes (yellow port and starboard staysail sheets, grey port and starboard parasail sheets, black port and starboard parasail guys, red staysail furling line, green flecked mainsheet, black vang tensioning rope), 3 reasonably comfortable waterproof cushions that cover the sitting area, 2 adjustable chairs, one with pillow, 3 winch handles, 2 steering lines and 2 adjuster lines for Paul the wind steering, a small £45 tablet running SailFreeGPS, a Samsung tablet running Navionics, OpenCPN and Kindle app, 2 charging leads, odd bits of rope, a screwdriver, my fish catching box, 3 head torches, binoculars, logbook, reading books, 2 phones (no internet), InReach for sending position reports, SatPhone for special texts and weekly calls to my mum, 1.5 litre bottle of water, plastic mugs, sun screen, gaff, folding landing net, anchor stick, hand bearing compass, cryptic crossword book. Hmm, quite a lot of stuff.

As I said yesterday passing half way is a big psychological milestone. Suddenly you are getting closer to land rather than further away. So tomorrow the rum will come out again for Neptune's toast and a small, Peter might say, very small, tot for each of us. Halfway party food will be pin wheel wraps and almond, coconut and date balls. Up to now we've counted miles done. From here on in Gill will be counting miles to go. [Remember, Mariel?]. This can get a tad annoying if you let it!


email (text only, no pictures) to mvgc3@sailmail.com

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