I must admit that it has been a rather stressful last couple of days.

With all the mishaps we had over the last couple of days, coupled with a general lack of wind and the fact that we felt tantalizing close (triple digit miles) to Hawaii, I was more on edge to be done with this passage then at any other point during this trip.

Personally I’ve been getting enough rest and sleep but I’ve been laying down a lot more than usual and both George and Jean have made comments about being tired. I have to assume that hand steering is slowly taking its mental and physical toll on us.

It is not as if the hand steering is too physically exhausting as we tend to reef the sails down to keep the helm under control, but we have to constantly, and I mean constantly, look at the compass to keep us on course and keep the boat sailing fast and straight. Of course you can sail by the stars and clouds and ship shape, however I’ve found that if you don’t keep an eye on the compass 95% of the time the boat speed slows down, the boat gets off course and you end up doing “S” curves through the water.

I know I have gotten into a rhythm on my shifts. After about the first 5 minutes I settle down and can keep the boat on course within +\- 5 degrees, however keeping the course that tight requires constant motion at the helm and correction of the wheel for every wave and puff of wind.

And to top it all off we broke a lower shroud attachment point yesterday. Luckily it was the forward lower on the lee side which has the least stress of all and I was able to lash it down with some amsteel. It must have broken when we were motor sailing over the last couple days and the boom was slamming and banging about.
Oh well, one more thing to fix and be aware of!

Position update at 1200 local time April 9, 2016:
20 54.403 N
147 23.460 W
160 nautical mile noon to noon run
545 nautical miles to destination
6.8 Kt. SOG
281 COG

We’ve managed to sail ourselves into a patch of light winds smack in the middle of the traditional NE trades.

We motored for a couple hours in the afternoon and we’re lucky enough to sail most of the night until about 10 am when the engine came back on again.

It’s not that I mind the lower speeds of low wind sailing, it’s more that this boat has so much clanging and bashing with the in mast furler and large and generally heavy head sail. If we don’t have 8-10 kts apparent wind the sails don’t stay full and it is very trying on my nerves.

Next time round I think I’ll need to work out a bullet proof low wind sail solution. Asunto is so versatile in 18-20 plus kts of wind fit is great, but in anything under 12 kts I just find it very agonizing.

But we are getting close! I can feel that we are getting within striking distance.

Position update at 1200 local time April 8, 2016:
20 28.192 N
144 36.389 W
148 nautical mile noon to noon run
704 nautical miles to destination
6.5 Kt. SOG
282 COG

Well I am happy to report that nothing broke in the last 24 hours!

We had a slower than anticipated run but we are still on track. We were able to sail all night however the wind angles kept shifting and the wind speed has been constantly dropping over the last 12 hours.

It really is amazing how much I took our autopilot for granted. I had read all these accounts of people naming their autopilots or wind vanes because they were such an important part of the crew and other reports of people have hour after hour of autopilot woes and I just didn’t get it. Our autopilot system had been nothing but reliable for as long as we had owned the boat.

When we bought the boat it had an Autohelm setup from Raytheon / Raymarine that we used for a number of years. Two years ago I updated all the electronics on board and put in a new B&G course computer, rudder indicator and gyro compass, however I decided to leave the ram because a) it was still a current Raymarine part and b) it was is stalled in the bowels of the lazarret and c) it seemed to sail the boat well and I felt that some of the older Raytheon stuff was built pretty well.

I’m glad I kept the ram and I like the setup as it does seem to work well for our boat, however I do wish I had bought that used spare to keep on board as it is A LOT more work to hand steer for 8 days on end, but we’ll make it, we always do!

Position update at 1200 local time April 7, 2016:
19 53.884 N
142 02.816W
149 nautical mile noon to noon run
853 nautical miles to destination
4.0 Kt. SOG
293 COG

After our first night of had steering, which went real well, we awoke to lighter winds in the 12-13 it range and I decided to hoist the spinnaker. We were sailing along for about two hours on the kite at 130 degrees apparent wind when all of a sudden the boat rounded up and there was a subtle pop and the boat flattened out.

Unfortunately this flattening out was not a good thing because the head of the sail had ripped out and the sail was flying by the amsteel sewn into the luff of the sail. We rushed to get the sail down but but the time we got it back on board the amsteel had ripped out of the sail almost to the tack.

We went back to our furling headsail and it looks like that is what we will be on for the rest of the trip.

On a side note, I did attempt to repair the autopilot. George and I had to replace all the ball bearings that flew out when I took the ram apart which took most of our time. We then tried to epoxy putty some of the gears that were stripped (on the electro magnetic clutch) and I fought my way back I into he transom to reinstall the ram and test the repair.

**** funny story**** a 6’6″ man weighing 240 pounds does not fit very well into a space 18″ high x 24″ wide at the very back of the boat behind the generator, scuba compressor, water maker and steering gear, and I have the welts and scratches to prove it.

Once we had the ram reinstalled we tried it but the fix did not hold. The ram went in and out but could not hold the pressure of the rudder when the ram was not working in or out.

Kristine is going to look at getting it overhauled in Hawaii or possibly getting a new one and getting this unit overhauled in future.

Position update at 1200 local time April 6, 2016:
19 01.110 N
139 33.609 W
158 nautical mile noon to noon run
1011 nautical miles to destination
6.5 Kt. SOG
285 COG

Well we thought we were sitting pretty good until 0600 this morning.

We were cruising along with great speed directly towards our Hawaiian way point, 7-8 knots over ground and the trades truly pushing us along and then one of the worst (not THE worst of course) things happens, our autopilot stops working.
We were about 1200 nautical miles from the coast of Oahu when we got things settled down and figured out the autopilot wasn’t working. It was making a grinding noise and wasn’t moving the wheel. I crawled into the back and after some choice words managed to get the autopilot ram out.

After taking the ram apart I found that one of the delrin cogs inside was completely stripped. We had been sailing pretty hard for the last 24 hours, but I wouldn’t consider it the hardest we had ever sailed Asunto with the autopilot so I would have to assume that the wear was a built up over time as I assume the ram was installed when the boat was commissioned.

In hind sight I should have rebuilt or had a spare ram on board but it had worked so well for us over the years previously and up to this point in this trip I had thought very little about it, in fact I even passed up the opportunity to purchase a used ram for half the price of new on eBay that would have been an exact swap out for our existing ram.

We will now need to hand steer the last 1200 miles to Hawaii and hopefully there will be some wind to keep us moving.

Position update at 1200 local time April 5, 2016:
18 28.300 N
136 50.621 W
174 nautical mile noon to noon run
1185 nautical miles to destination
6.8 Kt. SOG
281 COG

Two exciting things happened today. (I know, big day out here)

#1 at 1400 on April 3 we hit the halfway point of the trip. It took us 11 days to cover 1520 miles and we are on track to  cover the next 1520 in 9-10 days based on our latest averages. We are heading directly to our waypoint of Honolulu now so it feels really good to see those miles reel off instead of playing cat and most with the wind.

#2 the boom vang went BOOM and the 8 bolts holding the rigid vang to the mast sheered completely off. We tried to drill out the SS bolts left in the mast but that didn’t work so we had to drill and tap 8 new holes. We managed to get the vang fixed in a little over two hours which is great, unfortunately we didn’t notice the broken vang right away because it was hidden behind the life raft and there was a little damage to the fibreglass, nothing major but just one more thing to fix down the road.

We are almost out of fresh fruit and veggies at this point and Jean has started a loaf of bread as we ran out of bread two days ago. Don’t fear as we have enough canned goods, rice, pasta and dried food to last us all the way to Hawaii.

Position update at 1200 local time April 4, 2016:
18 05.818 N
133 48.491 W
161 nautical mile noon to noon run
1368 nautical miles to destination
6.8 Kt. SOG
281 COG

We’ve covered more miles in the last 24 hours that Asunto has ever done since she was trailered across the country on a flat bed truck!
Although I know this record (169 nautical mile straight line run) will be broken in the future, and hopefully even on this trip, it was nice to accomplish since it is essentially a 7 Kt average from noon to noon.

The boat did really well and the key was the steady 19-21 Kt breeze that just kept the wheels turning. We still had a lull from about 12-3 am, but were able to,keep our average up with some prolonged 8 Kt runs.

I’m hoping we will see a 175 mile day as we have some stronger winds coming up, plus we made the turn for a direct rhumb line approach to Hawaii today at noon so if the wind direction holds we won’t have too much messing around to keep the boat on route.

We are only 16 miles short of our half way point so we’ll be enjoying some halfway point celebrations later tonight!

Position update at 1200 local time April 3, 2016:
17 38.301 N
131 01.478 W
169 nautical mile noon to noon run
1536 nautical miles to destination
7.3 Kt. SOG
281 COG

Some days are better than some nights. We had a great sail from noon until 9pm and another great sail from 6am to noon, but those hours in the dark were very trying last night.

Instead of blowing a nice 16-18 knots from about 45-50 magnetic (like it seems to do all day), the wind decided to drop to 8-10 and back all the way to 80-90 magnetic.

This wind angle meant we really had to sail wing and wind dead down wind but since it was night time, no one really wanted to wake someone else to get them up to help set the pole. Jean tried to go downwind without the pole and there was such a horrible noise I came up to see what was going on and we decided to run the motor. Then when I came on shift the wind was up to about 12-14kts but could not make up its mind on what direction it wanted to go so I ended up gybing three times on my own and loosing autopilot control once while I almost did a 360 in the complete dark with only the main up!

Because of all the messing around and less an ideal wind angle we only managed a straight line run of 140 miles, while we sailed closer to 150 miles with all our zip zags.

However, we did finally try fishing yesterday and true to Asunto form we got the fish on board only to be unprepared and lost it back overboard. It’s ok as it was a tiny (and I mean tiny) Mahi Mahi and would have only fed us a single meal if we had even decided to keep it.

I did get all the fishing stuff ready so that if we catch one today we’ll be having it for dinner!

Position update at 1200 local time April 1, 2016:
17 43.517 N
128 06.659 W
140 nautical mile noon to noon run
1726 nautical miles to destination
8.3 Kt. SOG
279 COG

We have had a pretty good 24 hour run, essentially on a beam reach. We never got above 90 degrees apparent but we saw as low as 130 before we decided to dive a little deeper and go wing and wing with the updated weather route.

The boat was just humming along, carried full sail into 21 kts true wind was was making good speed over ground at 7-8 kts.

It’s amazing how much better everyone sleeps when the boat is happy. Compared to the other night with the clanging and banging, I think everyone was really able to get some good rest in.

That being said, I know everyone had a decent ab workout yesterday with the boat on a 15 degree heel. For the first time on this trip we had to reef down the main while Jean made dinner.

Everyone is settling in nicely, books are getting read at a tremendous pace and I think we are all starting to eat a little less now that we’ve been confined to our 50′ x 15′ island for over a week.

We have some friends leaving Puerto Vallarta bound for Hilo tomorrow and I’ve told them I’ve been dropping lime peels over the side so they can follow us but I’m starting to run out so they had better hurry up! Good luck Yare!

Position update at 1200 local time April 1, 2016:
18 04.687 N
125 38.546W
161 nautical mile noon to noon run
1861 nautical miles to destination
6.0 Kt. SOG
250 COG

Nothing to extraordinary really, but man what a night.

My shift from 9 pm to midnight saw us lose about half our wind. Instead of blowing a great 18 kts from behind, the wind decided to drop to 8-10 kts but stayed right behind us such that the apparent wind speed was so low it would not keep the sails full even with the pole out and the preventer on. Plus to top it all off, we were taking the swell almost beam on, but not enough where we could change our sailing angles so we just banged and clattered all night.

After my shift I couldn’t sleep because of the shake rattle and roll as I thought the rig was going to come down top of us (not really of course).  I read myself to exhaustion (which reading the Game of Thrones gives you ample opportunity to do). The wind would pick up at times during the night and we probably average about 5 kts SOG through the night which is respectable considering the lousy start.

I made “fancy” quesadillas for lunch today. I say fancy because they included fried onions and peppers and I even cut up an avacado! Everyone said they were good but I’m pretty sure there were being nice considering the night before I made stir fry and my secret ingredient was…. Soy Sauce.

Maybe this passage making with make a chef out of me yet!

Position update at 1200 local time March 31, 2016:
17 52.090 N
122 49.725W
144 nautical mile noon to noon run
2003 nautical miles to destination
6.6 Kt. SOG
268 COG