Day 1 at-sea
15º 09’ N, 026º 22’ W
0536 Ship’s Time
15º 09’ N, 026º 22’ W
Steering 215º at about 8 knots
The tiniest sliver of moon is rising in the southeast, creating a surprisingly bright light in the hazy air. The Southern Cross constellation is aligned perfectly with the end of the poled-out jib, making it easy for the helmspeople to steer a straight course. The wind is up a touch, and it’s smooth sailing to the SSW.
We left Mindelo in a dusty haze around 1000 after a leisurely breakfast and after checking off the last of the pre-departure items. I had been feeling less anxious than ever in the few days prior, but those moments leaving the dock always get my heart beating with that special combination of nerves and excitement. A few hundred yards from the dock, after stowing lines and fenders, we hoisted the mainsail and bore away onto a broad reach and out into the channel between Sao Vincente and Santo Antao, and with that we were off.
As expected, the winds built in the channel and by noon FALKEN was surfing down waves and touching 14 knots, with just the mainsail set. Windspeeds topped 30+ in the sharp acceleration zone where the gentle trades are squeezed between the high peaks of the neighboring islands and shot out like a cannon. Whitecaps were all around us, flying fish scurrying out of the way of our bow wave. The steering was challenging, especially right off the bat, but everyone got a turn on the helm and did well. A few hours later we left the strongest winds behind, set the jib tops’l on the pole, and moseyed off to the WSW on port tack. Manot served up the traditional first-night-at-sea lasagne and the watches began.
As I type, we’re getting ready to jibe onto starboard tack and start making some westing on what will be our preferred tack. The weather forecast shows the steadiest tradewinds remain around 13-14º N latitude, so we put some southing in right off the bat. So while it appears that we’re headed well off course on the chart, it’s actually part of our routing strategy. We expect to be able to stay on starboard tack now for several days in a gentle band of NE’ly breeze.
Jibing the downwind rig is a whole process, with poles, preventers, and guylines strewn about the foredeck and the cockpit. We’ll save that description for a later blog. For now, we’ll wait for the first glow of daylight and the watch change to jibe this ship around.
— Andy
andy@59-north.com
View more passage logs
”For some things, we will never be ready.” - Moana 2
After 852 miles of open ocean sailing, the crew of Falken dropped anchor in Moorea's Cook's Bay—not with a quiet glide in, but surfing down waves in a squall, breaking speed records and cheering each other on through the rain. What started as a plan to "just dip a toe" into offshore sailing turned into something harder to explain: the worse the conditions got, the more alive everyone felt. Turns out the question was never whether the crew was ready—it was whether they even needed to be.
Kauehi conundrum
Kauehi atoll was always on the itinerary—until the forecast made it a gamble not worth taking. Squalls, bommies, a tidal pass, and no clean escape route: sometimes the hardest call in sailing is the one that keeps you out of a place, not in it. The Tuamotus will have to wait.
Hove-to!
Falken is too fast—a problem most sailors would kill for, yet here we are, tacking back and forth across the Pacific just to kill time. A rogue low pressure system south of Tahiti has stolen the trades and scrambled our timing for the tidal window into Kauehi's pass, leaving us hove-to 45 miles short of our target in the Tuamotus. Salt licorice, dream sandwich debates, and a philosophical question about mermaid reproduction are helping pass the night.