Doldrums…
0° S, 94° W
April 9, 2125 Ship’s Time | 120 Miles South of Equator, 94º W Longitude
Still Motoring
I cannot imagine what the mood must have been like back in the square-rigger days traversing this part of the world. There is NO wind. Hasn’t been for days, but a frustrating swell has us banging around even though we’re motoring at a smooth 6-7 knots. The sea surface is oily, and while there are rain showers all around us, none have yet come overhead to offer any kind of cooling relief from the baking sun.
We’re only 48 hours into this passage and have made 350 miles of progress, so I can hardly complain. Back in the day, those old ships could sit for WEEKS. With livestock and hundreds of crew and itchy wool clothing and no engines. I cannot imagine the stench that must have emanated from belowdecks. It’s frustrating enough on our modern machine here cruising through another moonlit night, here for fun and not work.
We took two reefs in the main earlier today, both for something to do with our time, and also to stop the incessant slatting of the mainsail. “Shaking pennies out of it,” my friend Paul Exner would say. The old ship captains loathed a calm more than a storm for the wear and tear it put on the ship’s natural canvas sails and hemp rope rigging. It’s not any different today—the firm press of wind in the sails keeps the rig taut, but the banging back and forth in a calm shakes everything loose, least of all your brain cells.
We keep downloading the latest GRIB models looking for wind, and even emailed WRI to ask them their thoughts, but the only answer is patience. The trades are south of us still, and we’ve either got to wait until they push back north again, or just keep on trucking and burning diesel. Speaking of which, we thought we had an issue with the fuel transfer pump earlier today, but it was a false alarm—turns out we were just trying to pump from an empty tank. Oops. We’re down to just over half our remaining fuel already, so these trades better fill in sooner than later.
In other news, we celebrated my dad’s 73rd birthday today! He got a leftover pastry and fresh coffee for breakfast, and was gifted an ice-cold afternoon beer to celebrate. At dinner the whole crew sang to him, and I think he enjoyed his birthday at sea.
As I write, the swell is more annoying than ever, the dampening effect of the mainsail reduced thanks to the reefs, but we can only hope the waves portend a wind somewhere that isn’t too far distant. What else to say…waiting for wind, motor-boating south.
HOLD FAST
// Andy
andy@59-north.com
View more passage logs
Ladies who reef
The trade winds have been kind, rolling the boat toward Hawaii in a steady, hypnotic rhythm—until last night, when a squall hit without warning and the wind jumped to 28 knots, slamming everything sideways. With rain driving down and the boat lurching underfoot, the crew had minutes to wrestle two reefs into the mainsail and get things back under control. What followed was a masterclass in wet, unglamorous, deeply satisfying teamwork—with less than 250 miles left to go.
Yankee Doodle Died at Sea, Riding on a FALKEN
A thin, foot-long tear in the yankee sail—50,000 miles of ocean behind it—and suddenly the final stretch to Hawaii just got a lot more interesting. The crew of FALKEN had been running a tight ship through the trades, reefing in squalls like clockwork, when the last dance finally caught up with them. How a skipper handles the moment everything goes sideways says everything about the voyage itself.
A Gen Z Perspective
At 31, the crew thought they were reasonably fluent in the English language—then they met Kip. Today, the crew's self-appointed Gen Z correspondent takes over the log from somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, delivering dispatches on Milky Way night sails, focaccia-induced visions, and the singular mission of getting eleven people's "badonkadonks" to Hawaii. Consider this your glossary.