Sailing, celebrating, star watching, eating brownies
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Mary
Happy birthday to you
Yes, it’s our skipper’s birthday today! We have two more birthdays coming up on this trip.
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It’s day 3. Almost everyone has found their sea legs, so all is well.
We’ve had a great passage so far. Good wind, a comfortable sea state, good company, good food. What more could you ask for? (Hmmm. A shower would be nice.)
It’s warm! Down below, it can be a bit of a sauna. On deck is not as bad as I expected. A decent breeze cools you down a bit. As we’re heading almost due north on a starboard tack, the mainsail provides a reasonable amount of shade after noon when sitting in the cockpit. However, you are rather exposed when at the helm.
Even at night, it’s warm on deck. The breeze is such that when at the helm I’ve been almost too warm wearing two very light layers. May it continue!
As the moon is past its third quarter, we’re getting amazing views of the stars for the first part of the night (provided there aren’t too many clouds). At around 1945 last night, Phoebe was at the helm and six of us were sitting in the cockpit. No conversation was going on. Had we fallen out already? No. Were we miserable and counting the minutes to the of the watch? No. (Three of us from the next watch were up on deck early.) We were all simply quite happy just to soak in the sight of the Milky Way.
I was on the 2000-2300 watch last night. Looking astern, it was great to see the Southern Cross slowly pivot as it made its way across the southern sky. How often are we able to see the night sky AND make the time to observe the passage of the stars across the sky?
Just had dinner. Phoebe cooked brownies in lieu of a birthday cake. Well received.
The sun has just set. We’re slowly settling in for the night.
Good night.
Bruce Hardie
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.