pre-departure

June 16, 2024 | 16:30 UTC
The new crew of eight joined myself, first mate Manot, and apprentice Athena aboard Falken yesterday at 1300 to sail from Ponta Delgada, Azores to Galway, Ireland. After a friendly introduction to the staff, the boat, and the forthcoming passage, we dove straight into the domestic briefs followed by the essential safety briefs: fire, flooding, abandoning ship, gas safety, dismasting, and the on-deck orientation.
After a delicious meal at a local restaurant and an early night, we commenced the safety brief this morning with winch safety, lifejackets, and a Man Over Board (MOB) drill. Lunch gave everyone a chance to recharge and digest all the information thrown at them over the past 24 hours.
This afternoon we discussed the weather forecast, and the crew started working on our passage plan and pilotages out of Ponta Delgada and into Galway, with a potential stop in the Aran Islands. The weather forecast shows fresh northerly winds on Monday, so we might delay our departure until Tuesday to have a slightly easier start to the trip.
Everyone is excited to leave and looking forward to the 1200nm passage. Fair winds and a following sea.
- Chris
ChrisKobusch
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.

