Wednesday June 22
Noon Position N 21 05.647 W 127 09.189 Overcast, modest swell
About 900 miles SW of Ensenada.
Hello Everyone!
Wow what fantastic sailing! Winds mid teens from the North, beam reaching and seeing 6 PLUS Kn. Sea state calmest of the trip. And it’s warmer! Winds shifted overnight by about 25 deg, as a result I have altered my point of sail to continue in the direction the routing plan is recommending. I am heading more West than the rhumb line to the Marquess, in several days I will make a significant change in course and jibe to almost South. This course will line me up to cross the convergence zone at approximately right angles and with maybe NO loss of wind. I would then continue SSW to Nuku-Hiva.
I should probably explain briefly what the convergence zone is. This is an area where the weather systems of the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere meet. It creates an unstable area where winds do not prevail or even reliably blow. It’s size and shape can vary significantly daily and seasonally. Oddly in this part of the Pacific the zone is not at the Equator, it is North of it by 5-10 Deg of Lat but varies widely.
If I were to cross in the wrong location I could encounter hundreds of miles of no wind. In a good location the crossing maybe hardly noticeable. The location of a good point to cross moves constantly. Another factor is currents, the zone can have Westerly currents of up to 2.5 Kn! So you could be becalmed attempting to head S yet moving West at 2.5 Kn, this could cause you to miss your destination or have to fight against the wind to make it. This happened to an experienced friend of mine and he has cautioned me to studiously avoid that type of situation. I am keeping a close eye on on this and will fine tune my approach to match the most advantageous location. The onboard satellite weather reporting system will pay off big time!
Big boat little boat, so misunderstood by even experienced boaters. I could relate so many stories of what people have said to me regarding this. One friend related how a captain she knew wouldn’t head out to the Pacific in a boat of less than 120’. Another person thought that her 33’ boat was OK but my 27’ wasn’t.
First off my boat is a “Blue Water boat” meaning that it was designed to do what I am doing, a number of the same model have circumnavigated and my exact boat has been back and forth to Hawaii several times. My feelings are that a smaller boat such as mine well prepared is not inherently more dangerous than a larger boat.
The primary differences are in speed, stability, and load carrying capacity. Larger boats are exponentially more expensive to own and much more physically demanding to operate. For instance sails become too large for one person to move on a larger boat, if you need to repair or replace a sail it could take several people to do it.
Likewise when sailing a larger boat the physical effort needed to trim and hoist sails sometimes becomes too much for an owner and requires the addition electric winches. Not so on smaller boats, the entire equation of loads is more manageable on a smaller boat. In my case my boat meets most of my needs, is not overly physically taxing and is modest in cost and labor to maintain. I do desire more stability and thus ride comfort and of course a microwave the rest not so much!
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Ben
S/V DAWN
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