Last night was much more pleasant than the night before. The wind held steady, and aside from minor trim adjustments, the sails were low-maintenance. It’s starting to get chilly at night, but we can shed our extra layers of clothing at sunrise.
I loved reading your messages and comments about the sewing machine. It sounds like Sailrite has a ton of helpful video tutorials I can follow—I’m optimistic about my project list! There’s a running joke amongst sailors that to be a liveaboard, you must be a nurse, chef, engineer, carpenter, maid, marine biologist, electrician, mechanic, meteorologist, doomsday prepper, seamstress, etc. I am constantly learning something new!
We’ve been turning Starlink on for an hour in the morning and an hour at night, but it takes ~30 minutes to connect, so our time online has been minimal. After checking in with my family this morning, I read up on another catamaran requiring rescue— the 4th one here in two weeks. They hit “something” around 3am and began taking on water. All crew members evacuated into a liferaft and were rescued 10 hours later. I couldn’t find anything that detailed what exactly they hit, but there’s been speculation it may have been a shipping container. It’s rare but not unheard of. The large metal containers fall off cargo ships and drift partially submerged for miles. One of the people aboard was an Olympic sailing medalist, which shows that while skill is an important part of sailing, so is luck, and sailing in the dark adds another layer of risk; it could happen to anyone. I’m sure their hearts are aching over the loss of such a beautiful vessel, but their well-executed evacuation is admirable. We’re glad everyone is safe!
Despite it being a beautiful sunny day today, we had to run our generator. We simply do not get enough solar with the sails up, travelling east/west. Considering we’ll be sailing in this direction for the rest of our circumnavigation, increasing our lithium bank and charging options (or simply getting a more reliable generator) is a high-priority project. Our current setup was perfect in the Caribbean, but it just isn’t cutting it out here.
There’s been a creaking noise coming from our boom for a few days now, and it’s been driving us crazy. We’ve tried everything we could to silence it but couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. This afternoon, Ray cracked the code: it was coming from where the reefing line loops around the boom. He put a black piece of rubber in between, and the sound is gone! Woohoo!
We had homemade Salisbury steak, gravy, and mashed potatoes for dinner (one of Ray’s favorites) and watched the sunset.
Tonight has been lovely so far, with 20kn of wind and green bioluminescence glittering in our wake. We have less than 400nm to go to reach our destination. If you’ve been keeping up with these daily updates, you know the drill by now: my shift has just ended, so I am off to bed! Goodnight! See ya tomorrow.
18 Responses
You definitely need some luck in this game but I see you have a snubber attached to the boom – is this for a preventer ?
Where does is tie off to ?
Also I noticed you were on a bouy at Bora Bora YC for a while – how do you arrange this bouy ?
Thanks Fred
we leave for Tahiti on Wednesday
Hey, Fred! Yes it’s a preventer, tied off to our aft cleat. For the mooring balls in Bora Bora we always just show up and hop on one, a man will come by to collect a daily fee (he will also take trash twice a week!). Wishing you fair winds for your upcoming passage!
your post invokes a lot in us…very deep gratitude and a very deep sense of pride for what we have accomplished and what we have experienced! humility and pride simultaneous! our lives require courage, resourcefulness and resilience! 💙. oh and bioluminescence yay!! 💚
Be brave, take risks, nothing substitutes experience! Sending you guys lots of love❤️
Hey guys, you’re amazing. Keep going,.I’m sure luck will be with you. I hope so. It’s terrifying the thought of hitting something and sinking and at night , even worse. Glad they were ok.
Question on your power , how much solar and lithium do you have? Have you worked out what you think you need?
With love 💕
Thanks for the encouragement. ❤️ We currently have 900Ah lithium and 1800W solar. We’re still fine tuning our upgrade plan but we will share the full details when we do— likely more than doubling the battery and ending up with over 3000 watts of solar (we want to be able to run occasional AC and daily electric galley) 🤞🏼
Thanks. I’ll assume that’s 900ah at 12v.
By the way do you know if that outremer actually sunk or stayed as per the picture. Would be interesting to know. 😘
Correct! And I’m not sure, I’ve been searching for updates but haven’t seen anything reliable…
What’s your current solar and battery set up?
900Ah lithium + 1800W solar
hi – and all this time i thought his favorite was a cheese burgher, beer and fries, or maybe that just when he is on land. you remember land right? oh before i forget. while in New Zealand consider the hop to Antarctica. you have to be lucky there is a flight when you have time but the pictures are fantastic. all white but fantastic.
Yes the bacon cheese burger, fries and beer combo is a land favorite, plus the occasional chili cheese dog if he can find one. 😂 Antarctica… now that’s something that hasn’t crossed our minds. We might need some warmer clothes, first!
The sunset and your smiling faces all in one pic- perfection!!
Just missing you and mom!!
Safe travels Holly and Ray! Love ya’ll!
Thank you, John! ❤️
Ever since I saw a blog post and pictures from someone doing an Atlantic crossing on a cruise ship where they saw 5 or 6 shipping containers floating barely visible on the surface, that has been an unreasonable worry of mine whenever I am watching someone do a long ocean crossing.
Fair winds and clear seas! 🙂
That is horrifying!! Wow!