February 16, 2025 | Top speed and spinnaker pole!
This morning started with a seamless gybe, including the pole—Vilgot was suitably impressed with Dolphin watch’s speed at their first gybe with the pole. Since then, we’ve been in gorgeous sailing conditions, heading straight to our waypoint just above Barranquilla. As the wind shifted east, the other watch (yet to be named, but apparently ‘No Dolphin’ watch isn’t a winner) took the pole down. Since then, we’ve simply been surfing along with speeds of up to 13.8 knots according to JP’s watch.
Now that everyone has become far more confident in their helming, a friendly competition seems to be taking place for best speed. A surf down a wave is now frequently followed by an announcement of top speed reached!
As mentioned, we’ve had some dolphins accompanying us several times now. Unfortunately for the others, they only bless us with their presence when Janelle, Troy, Daniel, and Nick are on deck.
During glums and glows tonight, we were majority GLUM FREE—WOOHOO! The overarching glows were the opportunity for a visit to the outdoor spa provided on board (we’re certainly all smelling fresher) and, of course, the sunshine sailing we’ve had all day.
Everyone says hello to back home—we love the comments, so please keep them coming!
—FALKEN Crew
FALKENCrew
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Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.