Solo sailing Los Angeles to Hawaii on 23ft boat

one last view of the port winds already picking up so why do I noticed what kind of motor sailing tax preemptively putting on one of these seasick patches I'm down there Peter click I'm racing these two other sailboats not that guy in trade that connect with this guy looks like he pulled ahead sunset on the first day you haven't quite made it past Catalina but we're getting there it's a little rough going right now through the hatch here is my solution to my leaky hatch you had these rubber ones before but I think they had too much stretch so I just needed a these extra ropes it does seem to be holding it down for as long as it doesn't leak on this backside aircraft small aircraft carriers there's airplanes on it looked like they're just sailing away now the Sun is starting to come up press it over there conditions are pretty good today I've got the meet their mainsail triple reef right now and sometimes I feel like I could pull the rooftop you actually get the wind gets pretty light and then it goes up to these gusts almost 30 and I want to keep having their take it in and out so I'm just gonna leave it a triple Reed for now glass of scotch staring out at the ocean oh oh all around right now very nice this is all it takes to clog up this pump it's clogged up twice so far it I have identified the leak I'm not sure if it's the only one but the one I see the most is the starboard navigation light it's that's too bad mr. pears gonna made you a bowl the balancing out on the water well we're hopes you all right think if I got everything uh we bedded watertight [Music] kind of stream stream cooking I like my eggs eggs in a bag the egg and green chili and some cheese just boil it in there and makes a nice little omelette no surprise maybe a scientist already I got the spinnaker up but it's the challenge gonna stay stay open and it's barely any faster than the Genoa I think it's just the winds it's too late I'm gonna win today but I mind so much about hurry so it's still very nice day see the seas are pretty flat there's a little bit as well very small I've got let's see I got the the main reached and flat I think a little kind of mini preventer kind of setup to keep it from laughing around and let that power is getting from the gym and that's the fold out awesome to keep them from from flapping around you we're going about two knots well I'm into knots now incredibly the the wind vane is doing a great job keeping us on course just been reading today if I won't do end up doing like 50 maybe 50 miles not very much for well I put out the spinnaker and was like look I'm making some pasta now that cheese sauce and after it's done it's Monday which means we've been on high our entire week I just woke up we had our course has shifted south with the wind so I said go wing on wing just a little bit but just very little hardly any win ways to pretty happy with that wind vane was not doing a great job of staring with a spinnaker so I put on the electric autopilot and it's doing much better still the wind shifts since I do gotta adjust the chorus that's the disadvantage of this guy we're selling through a little bit of a squall but the rain should help wash off some of the gear I used out the main it's already got two reefs in it we're still healing pretty good but it's a little better not slamming anymore it looks like I get to the next 24 hours of beating into the wind the next 11 days look really good according the forecast feeding back and forth hardly making any progress and they're right into it well I guess it's not too bad so far we'll see dark-looking the bit of rain too bad so far looks a lot more ominous than it was wind picked up a fine line between five and six knots now on the floor so I think of the six all the time though yeah how much the six the wind vane said steering all right BA no I think this will be the first day we do a hundred miles in one day which I thought I would be doing that almost every day and I haven't done it once my best so far 75 we're right on track to do 100 miles today once again I say it's not true the time o breeze but it's not really enough to push us along this what this means is it's finally going to be shower time for me so I got my I'm gonna go ahead and jump in the water and then suds up and then jump in again to clean myself and runs off with fresh water so I got my solar shower [Music] [Music] [Music] lunch today is SpaghettiOs and meatballs and then I'm gonna go take some more new insights I think it's not gonna be new in for another hour so that I give me time to get get a eat you can't been out here too long so I took my new insights and I found the site of the local noon and then I could I calculated the latitude and longitude and then I compared it with the GPS numbers and I was only 18 nautical miles off which that's pretty good I feel like with a cheap plastic sextant and on a rocking boat I feel like that would be good enough to find Hawaii if I found my electronics go kaput that day becomes Han the ocean my for a swim this morning took everything out of the front about to dry off still out there I added a trailing line to the boat in case I fall overboard so I can grab it somewhere out there it's got a little old boat fender on there too second I can see it makes me feel a little bit better made maybe 15 miles today just drifting we're sailing through a little squall kind of exciting gusts in about 30 now we've been beating upwind and I think we're gonna I think it's like a little low-pressure system I've been like watching the barometer and like looking at the forecast and it looks like we're kind of like gonna go through it and it's kind of moving moving south on us so once it get to the other side we should hit the backside and it should give us a push instead of having a fight against it that's the least that's what I'm I'm predicting raining a little bit it's good it's a little dark it's not it's not super dense I think we're kind of probably near the middle of it right now just figure out what the weather is really doing like putting it into practice really makes it so much more real we're doing six knots on a with a triple wreath main and we're right on course so I feel like tonight we're gonna really put some miles behind me if I can I need to wake up every you know our make sure we stay on course I feel like the winds gonna keep shifting further north but this is good and it's looking like it's gonna be even better for the next for the next eight days so I think we can finally start putting a real distance real distance oh and we just across the the 30 I made it one third of the way there or one third of the way there seven hundred and sixteen miles right on feeling good I might have to put on the music to sleep tonight because I can handle the motion you get used to that but it sounds birds are pretty cool they've got really long wing spans and I kind of swore on the weight on the swells where to go I know where my laundry got wet when the hatch leak I decided to rinse it out and I don't know plotting our progress today and we're about almost halfway there or maybe two more days till we're halfway there distance Y so least hopefully we're already halfway there based on a trip I think maybe we're in the most consistent trade winds we I'm always too wet just under a hundred miles yesterday 1996 miles I think is there a new best time and today is looking like we might get close to 100 again awesome and then we're gonna we're never made it above hunger I never made it to 100 I keep thinking we're gonna get there and then I wouldn't always flows down my plate before the clock rolls over but I should be pretty good tune in for next few days this is my method for making an omelet on the boat works pretty well you take a ziploc bag green chili peppers in it third of a can at a small kid a 15 unrefrigerated eggs I still look like they're doing pretty good on day 15 off step on our frigerator cheese this is a new package then you just put this in the jet boy off and I have to fill up with water so it covers the egg and then minutes two or three minutes you can see it's all cook I just put it in the bowl and then if they eat it out of the bag you know you have to wash the wool or continuing the sale downwind today nice clear day or kind of growing my own food I've got almost all out of candy which is harsh harsh reality coming up and I can die I'm really bad at ration it we're going through it quick man got a little baby flying fish okay we're a thousand miles away from any land it's amazing these birds are so far out here get a little wet yeah dry out you should get my fly away not now that nice smooth ride as you hope it I just you got it buddy oh yeah it's nice and dry up there it's a good spot I don't know what she wants a little bird just likes to sit in my hand so bizarre the wild bird was probably happy with me very stressed out on the cockpit I made Henrietta a house so that she won't have to lay in my bed when it's got windows and a doorbell and even a little garden out front um let's see if she likes it Henrietta do you want to go in your new house think you might like it give it a try let's give it a try Henrietta I gotta go you gotta give things a try sometimes good that track go there she might like it in there yeah so good I don't know if she likes it you got your foot kind of funny in there all right maybe I didn't give you enough room for your tail I never got to decided to fly away I put her out on the deck to see if she wanted to and after her stumbling around a little bit she spread out her wings for a while and waited for a little bit and she flew away I guess probably best for both of us because she didn't seem to really like the boat rocking around very much and I was worried she was gonna poop on stuff she did poop on the deck once I said her out there so I think that was pretty good timing both of us had a real big set of waves coming through a couple of them crashed over the stern one of us one of them swung dressed around on our side and then over the over the starboard side when I was down below I think the course had gotten the wind vane kind of course adjustment got adjusted a little bit so I tweaked that so now we're we're running down away from the waves a little better then we're breaking over us to for a little bit but they kind of seem to have calmed down temporarily [Music] here's a pretty good one oh yeah it's either eyes it anymore [Applause] another little fish the amount of wind shifts tonight are insane like every like every 15 30 minutes it shifts 90 degrees and so I had to adjust the wind vane or South steering I don't wanted to keep it on course and our going like against the waves so I gotta wave anything outside on and just like my noise of a sail slapping around it's just driving me crazy and of course like right before this I went and took out the reef to the sail are bigger and they're doesn't want to flap around I leave the third reef in it's no dad but it's got a second reef in instead and he looked like have a boner dragon is insane noise so I was just realizing my solo artists my kind of slowly rubbing up against me Oh in the back stays and I couldn't figure out what's going on and then I just realized it's got two big cracks on to it every crack right there and another the exact same spot over here when I made this the metal shop didn't have the larger rift larger radius died for bending the tubing so I used a smaller one than was ideal and it kind of you can see I kind of kinked it and that's where it seemed to crack it seemed like it would it be I thought it would be strong enough but I guess you know with all the constant rocking of the boat and you know pounding and stuff it wasn't think I'm gonna jerry-rigged like a smaller solar arch but I need to cut off these uh these kind of parts for it broke so second fifth the connector on top of there fortunately I got my not power tools and they're very powered I can recharge them too so gonna chop those off and then I get a build a new arch when in this rocky rollin bow Stern arch I kind of like it it's more kind of simple and kind of a minimalistic it gets thick it doesn't clutter up the boat as much and actually it's also it seems to be much stronger because before I had both of the things going straight up I think now that they're because they're kind of triangulated it's so much sturdier it's not it's not wobbling it's not wobbling back and forth as much I'll see when I put solar panels on the challenge is gonna be sitting now it only has one bar going across you gotta figure out a way to mount the solar panels a little differently I just finished rebuilding the solar panel arch it took a while but it came out pretty good and it had an addition as now I can aim the solar panels I got these lines here in here these blue ones and they connect to the solar panel and pivots on the middle mount and then so I can I can aim the solar panels this way this way or this way yeah I threw up this morning I don't think the second time only the second time ever I've thrown up on a boat there so we're good I haven't felt seasick at all something like the very first or second day feel a little better now but something great about the day looks like we're having fine fish for breakfast and there's some little ones around here maybe I could maybe I can use those as bait and I can catch a bigger fish maybe a tuna mmm I remember I got a figure if I remember how to do this now all right I look pretty lousy at filleting the fish but there's my little piece cook it frying it up and butter this fine fine fish taste it looks pretty good smells good that's fantastic that's really good I think I mean I think I might need to catch myself some more fish wings are getting big again I'm annoying just trying to make some rice flying fish guys as bait there's my fishing setup that's pretty simple this day okay full hands full and then some shot cord yeah carabiner hook I was just trolling it for a while I didn't catch anything I think I'm gonna go for a swim because we're hardly moving I'll put a sailor down go for a swim and then maybe yeah for this guy back in again I just took my second shower for the trip this time the the solar shower worked real good got a real hot all right feel very clean I love my hands like the skin is like falling off my hands now it's weird I just jumped in the water and then I climb out and I put a bunch of like shampoo and soap on and then I rinse it off with fresh water from the solar shower he was about like a two guns or water from the solar shower it's probably more than I really need but feel so good there's a bunch of birds out here ladies are picking up got breakfast it looks like we're sailing through a squall now let's do and find out so I just decided to stay down here because it's raining we're doing we're going really fast with like doing seven or eight seven knots and I see eight a lot of times to fight price maybe averaging six and a half right now I'm fish cooking try number two just as good as last time [Music] [Music] pastor really mmm pastor pastor leaves [Music] 250 miles to go [Music] I'm averaging 5 knots right now I was just in the cockpit adjusting the course and the wave came over and it pooped the cockpit and got me pretty wet kind of sucks because it's a comfortably hot here in the cabin but I can't leave any of the hatches open because we're getting weight a lot of waves coming over and I sit out in the cockpit and I get in waves a blast at me so it's like either get so dirty and comfortably hot that's tonight two options kind of sucks I'm kind of over this right now just want to be there I'm only 150 miles away she's so close there's a bird I'm in front of my boot it took over but tries to get up there [Music] I am nineteen miles away from Hilo land is actually it's all hidden behind a cloud but I do have a little bit of cell signal so I've been able to you know check my emails and kind of get connected back into society a little bit which is nice I'm trying to decide if I'm gonna go for it and just uh it's gonna be about probably about 11:00 p.m. at night when I by the time I get in I'm fine decide if I should just go for it I've got an anchor tonight or if I should just heave to offshore and then do it in the morning when there's more daylight just like see with it doesn't look like a particularly difficult harbour to sail into though so I think I might just go for it be nice to just get there and get over with but then again it's gonna be late anyway so it's not really much advantage of getting in you know tonight versus tomorrow so we'll see where's our stick kind of large hopefully they get smaller I don't I'm not gonna be looking forward to sailing in the harbor with you know the waves this big do that first sign of land there's lights in the distance Wow oh man I feel so good yeah this is good I'm actually doing it I'm gonna make a deck screw anything else up I'm so miserable of course like the wind is dying because it's Sun went down I think the probably the breeze is switching I'm super seasick cuz everything is dark and I'm a point of reference I'm trying to do too much stuff snails are just making and flapping so much a wave oh my god it's so bad about four miles left like the sail 2,100 miles and the last for like I'm like more seasick from the rest of the trip there's some visual and it's like there's all these lights and just like stressed out like looking at everything trying to gauge where I am I should I just hope 210 miles offshore and sail then tomorrow morning it wasn't so much better so couple miles offshore we're getting the effects of the like this the shore effects where the sea breeze and onshore and offshore breeze kind of cancelled out the prevailing winds so I had to decide just to put the motor on and and I can't talk right now the autopilot steering instead of the wind made it's like a little electronic robot the winds been shifting so much as I got close to the shore the wind vane was asking him not just to change all the time so it's not quite as pleasant as sailing but it's only for a couple of miles and then we'll be yeah anchor we just sail then past the break ball I feel it way better now that the way is tied down that c6 has gone away I just got that you Bob started that the electric motor on just pushing us a little faster the smell the smells are just incredible it's amazing like okay I think I just haven't smelled land and so long it's like it's just so good like some spice I haven't smelled before it's like first that's really good just makes me really happy I just feel really good right now I was feeling seasick in it before but now the I'm in the Frankl I feel really good I'm gonna go try to find this like transient dock that the Yacht Club I got in touch with thanks to James kind of set that up so we're gonna see if that's available if now I'm just gonna turn around an anchor right outside the beach and then we'll see if we can find the harbor master tomorrow morning pretty cool is that [Music] we did it Los Angeles to Hawaii oh my gosh walking on the end is so weird okay someone in town I met this uh it's like transient doc I got pretty good night's sleep it's definitely some rain last night so I cleaned off some of the salt on the boat which is good one of the guys at the local Yacht Club is gonna come out and we're gonna get some breakfast feeling pretty good just gonna go ahead and start organizing the boat again getting it cleaned up a little bit it's sex I'm pretty good it's not - not too much disarray but there's still some stuff we need to do and they need to find in touch with the harbor master I wasn't able to call him last night sailing club got me these um these a little mini Hawaiian bananas and they're pretty delicious I like they're kind of just like little bite-size guys - here's what spot I I pull Vince he looks like in daylight it's near the Suisse and fish fish market up against this concrete wall it's kind of cool these tires is maybe seven or eight other boats on this wall still then through there it's really nice I like it waiting for the harbor or a master to come in I can get a get legal and in the meantime I think I'm gonna host pick it right here so I got a host I gonna hook up to that and clean off the boat get all that salt off so much salt so it looks like we were in someone else's spot I'm gonna go over near Reed Reed's Bay and just anchor over there and just drop the anchor at a reeds day as I was instructed to by the harbor master probably got him on the phone it's a nice little spot you

Channel: Sam Holmes

Views: 484,799

Rating: 4.9330025 out of 5

Keywords: Sailing, Ranger 23, Hawaii, transpac, pacific crossing, ocean sailing, small boat sailing, Los Angeles to Hawaii, Los Angeles, California to Hawaii, Hilo

Id: yUi0gsxVHZM

Length: 39min 45sec (2385 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/tn_notahick]

And here I am, researching 42ft sail cats just to sail from Miami through all the islands to Grenada or so. Who would have thought I could actually just buy a $3000 boat like that?

[u/InfiNorth]

I've been following this guy extensively. He is disturbingly positive, even in horrible weather, when encountering horrible people... he is a great inspiration.

[u/saralligator]

I’ve been watching him and I was so happy when the bird visited him and he made a house for it but then I was sad because the bird flew away and the man was alone again.

[u/feed_me_tecate]

That boat was on L.A. Craigslist for months a year or two ago. Good to see it adventuring!

[u/scotty0101]

Total badass

[u/LaughsWithYou]

Just found this video a few days ago as well. What a challenging feat, and he does it all with a smile. Great watch.

[u/Skookmehgooch]

I thought he was going to loose it but he didn’t, pretty amazing. Also too bad Henrietta didn’t stick around, would have been a great pet adoption story

[u/pg_rated]

That's a buddy of mine, he's extremely humble and you'd never know how talented, clever and capable he is unless you spent a lot of time with him.

[u/1000Steps]

This is great. Thanks.