Day 3
It is incredible how much change you can get in 24 hours out at sea. So far, this trip has not disappointed in terms of variable conditions and keeps proving an amazing experience for FALKEN and her crew. So far we have changed from 2 reefs on the main to none, from staysail to jib, from jib to spinnaker, and from spinnaker to yankee, which is what we currently have flying.
After we dropped the spinnaker last evening due to the wind lightening, we motor-sailed for a couple of hours before we found the predicted forecast, meaning a beam reach with 20+ knots. For those of you who have sailed FALKEN before, you know exactly what that meant—an average of 12 knots for the last 14+ hours!
We have been flying towards London in a North Sea that has been benign so far to us, giving us beautiful easterly winds that we have so far enjoyed. Our current ETA is looking for an arrival to the Thames Estuary by tomorrow morning, but it will all depend on what the weather does tonight.
Once at the entrance of the Thames, it’s all a tide game as we can only go up to Tower Bridge with the tide rising, so we’re going to need to time it right. Our arrival into St. Katherine’s Dock will either be Monday or Tuesday.
But everyone is having a blast onboard and it’s been a great sail so far. Looking forward to more of the same!
Alex
laline96@gmail.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.