Celestial
8º48’S, 128º33’W
April 19, 2025, 2230 Ship’s Time | 8º48’S, 128º33’W | Full Mainsail & Poled Jib Top
“At certain times in the life of a navigator, it can be more useful for them to know not where they are, but where they are not.” — John Mellor, SAIL Magazine, November 1975
With Falken having happily found her stride and on the last 600-mile stretch to land, I found myself with some downtime to actually practice the one thing I set out to conquer on this passage—celestial navigation. I’ve really done my best to learn this dark art, but despite the hours of YouTube videos, online classes, and books, it’s maintained its ADHD-fueled mystery. I remember the first time Andy sat me down to explain the basics in Sweden last year using his signature “whatever fruit is available” presentation, and ever since it’s been my white whale. A geocentric model of the universe perplexes me, and I couldn’t get past the idea that celestial objects could be “above” something.
Well, with much patience and an open mind, we’re finally taking, reducing, and plotting sights—it’s starting to click. The last three days, the whole crew has taken turns getting in on the action, with Ted acting as a bit of a mentor for me. His approach is purely mathematical, using spherical trigonometry and a ream of graph paper to boot. I’ve opted for the more classic Pub 249 and Nautical Almanac route (cosine who?), made a bit easier with some of the celnav worksheets Andy made available from the Quarterdeck.
The other thing that has been made abundantly clear is the need for a good structure of planned sights! This means making a plan and researching what stars might be easily available come twilight because there’s not much time to dilly-dally. Being right near the equator, it would look something like:
- AM Nautical Twilight Three-Body Fix (zenith and approx. altitudes pre-calculated)
- Running Solar Fixes around Local Apparent Noon—with one sight shortly before LAN, one near LAN, and one shortly after to account for the almost 180º azimuth change in this part of the world.
- PM Nautical Twilight Three-Body Fix (zenith and approx. altitudes pre-calculated)
Are we actually able to pull this off? Well… not yet. If you read Andy’s previous blog, it should come as no surprise that we’ve had some successful star sights. Alas, tonight I’ve been stumped for the past hour trying to figure out why Aldebaran was giving me a terrible intercept—after some heavy cheating, I’ve determined it was actually Jupiter. My white whale swims off into the starlit swell of the Pacific. Here’s to hoping in these last few days, we can finally figure out where we are… or aren’t.
—Aidan Gray
59ºNorthApprentice
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Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.