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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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.