Heading Offshore
July 21, 2024 | Day 1 at Sea
Offshore Bergen
The first 24 hours of any trip with a heavy upwind start are always going to be chaotic. This past day has not been an exception. A scene akin to the climax of the film Triangle of Sadness came to mind as Mia and I handed over to one another at 10pm last night. “There is a bucket stationed in every area,” she said to me, to the familiar background track of hurling. Someone had gone for round two. But I’ll tell you—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much puke come with so many smiling faces. The crew are determined to soak up every last second that they can on deck. And so on they go, braving the undressing and dressing manoeuvre again and again and again. Impressive!
The good news is that the wind has veered around to the west now as forecast. So hopefully we will have a bit of reprieve from the bashing soon. It’s already tracking round to the right, with Kaitie on the helm doing a stellar job following her course whilst the crew of Jaime and Lindsey trim sails to the changing wind. We had the staysail up all night with three reefs in as the wind exceeded 30 knots. Now happily flying a slightly reefed jib and one reef in the main, zooming straight at Amsterdam at 8 knots! But now thinking that through… you can probably see that on the tracker :)
— Nikki
NikkiHenderson
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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.