Singlehanded sailing voyage from BC to Hawaii

[Music] fourth day winds are picked up fortunately got the Aries into service today that's the wind bin Contraption you see off the stern and it's taking care of steering the boat which is good cuz I can't do it 24 hours a day and uh the wind's getting a little bit too strong for the electronic killer pilot and the seas are getting a little bit too big I'm about 250 Mi off the coast of Northern California right now approaching the latitude of Cape mesino which is notorious for its rough weather and I'm in for a couple of days of uh pretty strong winds [Music] [Music] I'll go days without seeing another ship and then sometimes like today two of them will pop up right next to each other and pop up they do I didn't see this one visually till it was about 5 miles away it was going 20 knots over 20 knots would have been on me in uh 15 minutes and at a close to a collision course but fortunately I'd seen it on my AIS display an hour ear earlier knew it was coming hopefully it saw me on its AIS and would have changed course if I hadn't but uh might makes right it probably counted on me being the one to change course [Music] pretty well close hold now an areas of steering like a champ and only 8 knots apparent but I can't get them to handle anything down when the beam reach working on it [Music] July 13th a good 20 knots boats doing 5 and 1/2 six on a broad reach AR's wind Bane is steering marvelously the sun's charging up the batteries through the solar panel all is wonderful [Music] so there is a dismaying site a thoroughly busted Cal pendulum steering a dangling way I don't think I can repair it on Bo that means no more mechanical self steering that means all I have is my electronic killer pilot which can't handle rough Seas so I HOV to last night got my first decent sleep of the trip I'm going to sail today and hopefully by tonight Seas will excited enough for the electronic killer pilot to take otherwise I'll Eve to again for another [Music] night July 20th 15 days at Sea it looks like the fabled easterly trade winds have finally arrived I've been waiting for them as of noon today I was 890 nautical miles from Hawaii and I'm heading straight for it in a generally Southwest Direction 221 de my progress has been slowed down by the breakdown of my mechanical wind Bane self steering unit 3 days ago I do have a electronic autopilot as a backup but it can't handle the big seas and strong winds and for the last three nights there were nasty breaking seas that I didn't want want to trust the autopilot too so for those three nights I've hoved to and just uh sat there with uh a double Reef M and stacil getting a good sleep for the first time on the trip but tonight it looks like I'll be able to use the uh autopilot the Seas have [Music] evaded how quickly things can change till July 20th but now the beautiful sunny skies have disappeared and the electronic autopilot appears to have given up the ghost leaving me with no self steering options that means this last uh 890 miles to Hawaii is going to take a bit longer than plann cuz I'll have to heave to whenever I'm sleeping [Music] night is falling in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it's pretty damn [Music] incredible well I woke up this morning with an [Music] idea what a bump blash together the pivot arm and the I think it's the trendon gear assembly where a thick stainless steel bolt that previously held them together had sheared off at first I thought it was crazy but necessity is the mother of invention and desperate times called for Desperate Measures at all that and so I've lashed together the two components that were formerly bolted together and I'm thinking just thinking it might work we'll soon find out well didn't work right off the bat needed a another round of lashing around the middle to draw the original lashings Tighter and uh then I had to switch to the smaller vein because the uh old one was too heavy flop over to the side now that uh the joint is looser than it used to be that joint was always the problem with the wind B it was too tight and now steering for half an hour about 5 knots and 12 14 knots of wind on a broad reach it's looking [Music] good July 24th third and hopefully final time of adjusting Aries in the lashing system think of finally got the gears aligned right now can't adjust through much of a range with the lashing but I've got it set up for a basically a broad reach on a qut tack which is the most favorable setting I could have for uh getting to Hilo Breeze is really picked up for the last evening of my passage I'm roaring along at 6 and 1/2 7 knots on a deep broad [Music] reach well noon on July 29 somewhere 30 m ahead is Hawaii thought I'd be able to see it by now but it's sucked in behind those clouds at least it should be there if my sex didn't work has uh been done correctly that's a a joke I did bring my sex I do know how to use it but I've got to confess it's never made it out of its box for the journey I've uh relied on the marel of GPS and preparation for my arrival I've got a American courtesy flag flying as well as the yellow quarantine flag that has to stay up till I've cleared Customs which unfortunately won't be until tomorrow morning I hope to get there before they close today but winds have lightened up and that's not going to happen one more night with cold beer and hot showers tantalizingly close [Music] [Music]

Channel: Patrick Dickie

Views: 792,090

Keywords: sailing, singlehanded, single handed, Kismet, Aries, aries, windvane, wind vane, selfsteering, self steering, Spencer 35, sailboat, Spencer Boats, Kismet II, Hawaii, Ocean, voyage, passage, BC, british columbia, solo, Canada, offshore, offshore sailing, ocean, bluewater, blue water, spencer 35 sailboat, spencer sailboat, spencer yacht

Id: D8E5-XA9ZWs

Length: 13min 56sec (836 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 26 2012