DAY 11 - Good Progress

I woke up at 6 AM to find a clear sky with a thin layer of high cloud and the boat at 30.31N, 152.20W. I was 620 nm from Oahu and 1640 nm from Juan de Fuca. At midnight, 3 AM, and 6 AM the boat speed was 6.1 kt with the same course of about 040. For 24 hours Pachuca had been running on rails and Jeff had done a magnificent job of steering the boat.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed a ship displayed on the screen when it was 15 nm away. It was going to cross my bow 3.5 nm away in 33 minutes. Even though I had the sun behind me I was not able to see it visually until it was 10 nm out, hull down, only the superstructure visible. It was the Sea Elegance bound for Tomogashima. I had the presence of mind to turn on my VHF radio because he would have seen me with his AIS and might try to contact me, then watched the ship until it crossed my bow. I then went to tend to my sails and from the cockpit I heard a voice on the radio. I got on the radio said something like "Sea Elegance Sea Elegance this is the sail boat to your port side. Have you tried to contact me?" He replied that he had, and was everything OK with me. I told him that I was bound for Seattle and yes, everything was fine and thanked him very much for the call. He was out of Mexico bound for Japan with a mostly Phillipino crew. I mentioned my boat's name (name of a city in Mexico). We had a short chat then wished each other a good passage. I found the encounter pleasant and reassuring. Not all ships will run you down and leave you for dead. Here was one that actually asked if we were OK. I checked up, by the way, and my AIS safety ring is at the maximum of 2 nm instead of 6 as I reported earlier. However, the alarm goes off when the ship is within 24 minutes of the safety ring.

I had my daily sessions with Richard and Jeff, and later with Chris. Richard had had a hell of a night, with 45 kt winds and huge seas. At 3 AM he had to go on the deck and drop all sails but his spitfire jib. By the time we spoke last night the weather was abating and he had a bit more sail up. He was at 42.44N, 152.08W.

I have been much more fortunate with the winds to the point that I told Jeff that I was starting to feel guilty and wished that I could give some of these favorable winds to Richard. I meant it. By my reckoning this is Richard's fifth week out there.

After looking at the set of 9 weather faxes that I downloaded yesterday morning and discussions with Jeff and Chris (who have both provided invaluable weather information and opinions) it looks like my prospects for the next few days may be very good. There is a broad not-too-deep low to my NW and the lower end of a High to the E. The two systems are working together to give me the good winds that I am currently enjoying. That Low should give me some strong (20-25 kt) southerly winds within the next 24 hours which I will try to ride as long as I can. I will drop the mainsail and run before the wind with jib only. Then if I'm really lucky the High to the E will strengthen and I'll be far enough north to benefit from its clockwise wind rotation. If this happens I could have a very good run to Juan de Fuca. IF!

Chris and I discussed various safety issues. That reminded me to invert my fire extinguishers for a few days to get eliminate any sedimentation. I also plan to do some "what if" scenarios. For example, Would I be able to use the hand-held VHF radio on a pitch-black rainy night in a howling wind? (Ans: Not really. I'd have to grope the various knobs and buttons to try to get something. After I get past that hurdle the next question will be: The VHF radio is dead. Can you change the batteries under those conditions? Do you even have spare batteries?)

After problems all the time since its installation in Opua NZ I have finally accepted the Raymarine ST60 wind instrument as part of the crew. It has been working well when sailing up wind and now that I am sailing on a broad reach I can see that it is also accurate when the wind is abaft.

Raymarine should tighten up its act on this one. The manual is a joke. I got conflicting advice from various Raymarine specialists. The last guy I spoke with at Raymarine Tech Support was cranky and defensive. His first response was that he would not discuss it until a certified Rayarine technician had been on board. (Hmm, that's strange. This was not mentioned when I purchased the unit, nor is it mentioned in the user manual, with it's one entry in the Troubleshooting section: Phone Technical Support.) I gently mentioned that the previous day a certified Raymarine technician had been on board with a new head, cable, and display, could not make out what was happening, and advised me to ring Tech Support. Mr Customer Focus didn't respond to that and started the "Calibration Calibration Calibration" mantra. I told him that I'd tried calibration about 8 times, with no success. He told me to take the boat out and first set the unit to Factory Default. I said fine, but this was new to me - nobody had ever mentioned this before and it was not in the manual. Then I was to do two 360 degree turns either port or starboard, at any speed of rotation that I chose (although the manual says to do it "slowly"). Fine I said. Will I then hear the three beeps signifying successful calibration? Don't worry about that was his reply.

That failed, of course. By good fortune I managed to calibrate the unit by unorthodox means the other day. Maybe Mr. Grumpy's undocumented advice to first set the unit to Factory Default was the key to it all. If so it was the only contribution that he made during that miserable exchange.

On a brighter note, it looks like I have moved a full 140 nm toward Juan de Fuca over the last 24 hours.