The Passage from San Diego to Hiva Oa

Photos at bottom of page


This post covers a few notes and photos of the voyage from San Diego to Hiva Oa.

--The total distance according to our daily noon to noon runs was 3035 nautical miles. The actual distance sailed was somewhat farther, as we probably never ran straight for 24 hours at a time.

--The passage time was 41 days. Our longest days run was 125 nautical miles, near the beginning. Our shortest was about 8 nautical miles during a windless day in the doldrums, though we had several other days almost as short.

--Our water consumption was 47 gallons, or an average of just over half a gallon per person per day. That is somewhat misleading though, as we drank much more per day during the last two weeks due to the heat during windless days in the doldrums. We left San Diego with 67 gallons and arrived in Hiva Oa 41 days later with about 20 gallons on board.

--In general we had good wind with the exception of a day or two, from San Diego to 7 degrees north. There we had a particularly vigorous squall lasting several hours with winds in the 30-35 knot range. From there until 5 degrees south, a distance of just over 700 nautical miles, wind was highly variable, with frequent squalls.

At 5 degrees south, we experienced a squall similar to that of 7 north, but stronger, as a minor depression formed and then dissipated several hours later. Even south of 5 degrees, winds remained somewhat variable in direction and speed. Only during the last two days did we experience classic trade winds with cumulous clouds, few squalls and fairly sustained east wind at 10-15 knots.

Almost all the other sailors here at Hiva Oa came from the Galapagos Islands and experienced unusual winds along the way. Most boats reported going down to 12-15 degrees south before picking up reliable tradewinds.

--There is no way we'd have wanted to do the voyage without self steering. Our self steering system was a home built modification of a design by the Dutch engineer and sailor Jan Alkema. We named it Clap Trap and it did the vast majority of the steering throughout the voyage. We used a combination of the boat's rudder and sail adjustments to balance Minimus, then adjusted Clap Trap to self steer. Sometimes the steering range was fairly wide, up to 20 degrees each way and other times it would be within 5-10 degrees all day. It depended on course relative to wind, wind speed, sail combination, etc.

--Our nighttime routine was to reduce sail to a very conservative area and then set Clap Trap. We'd both go to bed a couple hours after sundown. Pearl set the alarm for every two hours during the night and would get up to check course, squalls, etc. then go back to sleep.

Obstructions like floating containers, logs, sleeping whales, etc., we couldn't have seen at night anyway, so there was no use losing sleep over them. Our AIS receiver warned us of any commercial vessels in the area, which was the main reason we felt relatively safe sleeping at night. By carrying only a conservative sail area at night, squalls, which always brought sudden stronger wind, were less of a threat.

--We also sailed somewhat conservatively because early in the voyage we noticed a somewhat alarming lateral "S" bend in the mast on some points of sail. It was most noticeable on a beam reach when the boom vang was set up and the wind strong. That caused the boom to exert a lateral force on the mast, causing it to bend to one side below the spreaders and to the side above them. In actuality, the bend was only detectable when looking right up the mast along the sail track, so wasn't actually too extreme.

The mast had always struck me as being on the light side for what was otherwise a fairly heavily built boat. That was probably to make raising and lowering the mast easier for those who trailered their boats. Being a long way from a replacement though, we decided early on to sail conservatively. I've always felt this was a good policy. Comparing notes with other sailors here, the ones who pushed their boats hard tended to have the most equipment breakages.

We also re-rigged the vang to take out some of the lateral force on the mast.

--Our somewhat unique standing rigging has worked out well so far. One thing we should have done though was to pre-tension the dyneema lanyards with a come-along or other tensioning device before they went on the boat. We re-tensioned the rigging in San Diego and will be doing it again here at Hiva Oa. It's doesn't take long to do, but hopefully this will be the last time its needed.

--The latex paint we used on the hull, deck and almost everywhere else has held up well. More details on this and other aspects of our boat can be found on our website:

http://www.omick.net/adventure/sailing/sailing_offshore/sailing_offshore.html

Leaving San Diego as an aircraft carrier arrives

Turns out there was plenty of room for both of us

Passing Coronado Island, the last land for a few days

A few days later we raise Guadalupe Island, the last land for many weeks

Pearl apparently oblivious to a big sea coming up astern. Minimus rose to it as she did to all the others.

Pearl on a more relaxed day

Sailing downwind wing and wing (mainsail on one side, headsail on the other)

David's unpleasant kidney stone

Equator crossing celebration at 3AM

The inner sanctum, AKA the pit.

A squall forms nearby

Pearl plays the uke

Land ho after 41 days at sea!