We have sailed 325 nm since we started at Honolulu 48 hours ago. More or less straight north since pointing straight towards San Fransisco would mean 2200 miles hard on the wind. The normal scenario is that when sailing from Hawaii to the mainland you should do as we are doing, cross the tradewind and after having sailed north for 700-1000 miles you should be able to ease off the sheets and after a while set the spinnaker and point straight on to the destination. Some 500 miles from land there will be a gybe and as the wind picks up closer to the coast you will reduce the sail area a bit the last two days on a quick reach. Normal scenario is when the pacific high is stable and you basically just sail around it, downwind all the time. Pass to west and north going to the mainland and east and south going to Hawaii.
This trip may be a bit different. Where is the Pacific high? Where it normally would be situated it is a weakening hurricane «Kenneth» messing it all a bit up. Having said that it does not look too bad as a big low pressure system is taking a trip south from Alaska during the next days. We will hang on to the outer edge of that and it should give us nice sailing wind. How the weather and temperature will be is another part of it..
The drive unit for our main autopilot shut down today. We have a backup, a small tiller pilot that steers well with the wind from the side as we have now or when using engine so no big problems. We have also picked the unit apart and together again and it`s working now. Autopilot is of course an important device when sailing doublehanded but on the other hand, we still like to hand steer and in these big waves the autopilot is steering too much to try to keep the course instead of joining the waves a bit, making the boat find the best way to go.
Animals to report today: Flying fish and birds. No turtles or whales.
