Day 5
We are sailing on the edge of a high pressure system. On my morning watch, we shook all reefs and hoisted the staysail. Beam reaching under full mainsail, Yankee, and staysail, FALKEN was cruising along at 9, 10, sometimes 11 knots. In the late afternoon, the wind veered to a southwesterly Force 4 to 5, and we dropped the staysail, eased the sheets, and continued on a broad reach. It has been very pleasant sailing all day, and we crossed our halfway mark to Horta today—950 nm to go.
It looks like we found some favorable current as well, as our speed through the water is constantly about 1.5 knots slower than our SOG (speed over ground). As darkness fell, the wind veered further and it was time to set the pole, bring the Yankee to windward, and we are now sailing wing on wing. We might have to gybe in the early morning hours to maintain our course, but for now all is set.
The next few days will be interesting as we transition from the high pressure system into a low pressure with very light and shifty winds, plus rain and squalls in between.
Fair winds and a following sea,
Chris
ChrisKobusch
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”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.