2216 UTC | 08° 10.72’ S 107° 23.94’ W
Sailing
I woke up this morning to a delightful smell and stumbled out of bed to find Mia making her famed hurricane eggs— obviously, a debate regarding the real name of this genius breakfast creation ensued. To make matters more exciting, a small tear spotted in the leech of the main shortly after breakfast had Alex up the mast Spider-Man style. A special shoutout to Vince—I have never seen someone cut sail tape with such precision and mathematical accuracy.
FALKEN is officially on the highway to the Marquesas, as Alex calls it, also known as the southeasterly trades. She is cruising along with the swell (finally) on her stern and the sails wing on wing. I wasn’t sure the term ‘highway’ could accurately apply to sailing until about five minutes ago, when Kate surfed down an above average wave and reached 17.6 kts of boatspeed. I can confirm that down here at the nav desk, I certainly believed that I was on a highway to something.
The yankee is rigged to the pole, which means I’ll finally stop tripping over it every time I go to the foredeck. It’s been an eventful past 24 hours to reach this point, and I’ve lost track of how many reefs I’ve put in and shaken out. I’m almost convinced that a few of them were just for Alex’s entertainment. The breeze is ever present but constantly in flux, and in a way, I find it strangely comforting that it will never fully make up its mind.
All is well with the crew—we’re enjoying conversations ranging from European bears (they exist, right?!) to electrolytes to sea stories. Some of us even laugh at Ken’s extraordinarily niche jokes. Flying fish constantly zip just above the surface, raising questions of what could possibly be chasing them down below. We’ve stopped keeping tally, but many have found their unfortunate end after flinging themselves onto FALKEN (or worse, straight into Beven).
As for me? I’ve found myself most in awe at night, when bioluminescence sends glimmers of wave crests across an otherwise dark expanse. I’ve seen more shooting stars than I thought physically possible, and I love how Venus is always the first bright spot to appear in the sky as the sun sets. I’ve been thinking much about how space must not be all that different from the open seas, empty and incomprehensible from afar but alive and intricate once you zoom in. I find myself smiling as I realize it’s no surprise those who explore space were named after sailors.
Love to all,
Zoe Peach-Riley (Apprentice)
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.