21.30 LOCAL TIME | Cooks Bay, Moorea
Anchored
Landfall in Moorea! After 852 miles of North Atlantic - err, scratch that - South Pacific sailing we are at anchor in Cook’s Bay. Fittingly, our final miles were covered while surfing down waves in a squall. With most of the crew and staff on deck cheering each other on as we attempted to break our own records. Congrats to this trip’s “18 & Over” club: Jesse at 18.7 kts and Steve at 18.1 kts (don’t forget the 0.1, Mary). What a fun final day of sailing.
With the sailing component of this trip largely in the books, for whatever reason I am left reflecting on what I expected this trip would be like and what I experienced.
So many cool things jump out right away. The quick jump to quiet Ou Pua, sailing at night for the first time, brilliant stars and seeing constellations pop out of the night sky, awesome bioluminescence appearing everywhere as we carved through waves. And getting to share all of this on watch with my wife, Jenn.
I picked this passage because I thought we’d have relatively calm conditions and get to see some off the beaten path places. Just dip a toe into offshore sailing. As the trip appraoched, I kept thinking about how I wasn’t ready to do this. What if the weather was more than I could handle? What if I got sick? What if I hated this? What if Jenn hated this? (Or even worse, what if I hated this and Jenn loved it!).
What I found was that I felt most alive when there was more wind, more wave, more rain. Surfing down waves a little bit out of control. Even cooler, though, was looking back at the helm to see Jenn’s shit-eating grin as she pushed FALKEN to try to set the family speed record (no comment on whether she succeeded).
Was I ready for this trip? No. (Was I ready for the garden gnome story? Hell, no!) But with this awesome staff, this amazing crew and this kick ass boat…who needs to be.
Frank F.
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24 hours of resilience
Thirty knots of wind, a 2.7-metre cross swell, and a crew being pushed to their limits — the first 24 hours aboard Falken have been anything but gentle. Seasickness has taken its toll, but the boat keeps moving, carving north toward calmer conditions. Last night, between the chaos, the Milky Way stretched clear across the sky.
Pre-departure
Hawaii to Alaska isn't a downwind romp—it's a chess match with the North Pacific High, and the opening move is never obvious. Ten days of refit work, new sails, engine services, and enough provisions to outlast a bad forecast have FALKEN ready for whatever the high decides to throw at us. The crew arrives in an hour, and by Thursday, the bow points north—route TBD.
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.
