Hikianalia Update | Aug 30-31, 2018: Happy Birthday Keli!
Hikianalia Update by Hye Jung Kim
Aug 30 Update: Happy Birthday Keli!
We are celebrating our third birthday at sea in just a week’s time – today it is Keli’s turn and we all wish her Happy Birthday! We also caught an albacore tuna today and captured some exciting photos as Archie pulled it out of the water. We cleaned the deck this morning and ʻAnakala Gary made French toast and omelets for breakfast. It was super delicious!
AM Navigation Update: Our 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. watch used the swell and wind directions to steer. We also had to jibe for about 30 minutes, and then jibe back to avoid a ship. Over the course of 4 hours, we averaged the star house Manu Malanai course over water at 7 knots. Our 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. watch averaged La Malanai at 8 knots for their 4 hour watch and used the wind, swells and moon for direction. We had a cold, rough, hard watch. For our 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. watch, we were averaging Lā Koʻolau at 7 knots on average and we had the stars come in and out for part of the night. We were able to check heading but could not check latitude because the lower stars on the meridian were not visible due to cloud coverage. We will try again tonight if it is clear.
Our reference course for the first portion of the voyage is the star house ʻĀkau (direct north) until the latitude of 41 degrees, At that point we turned toward the continent in the direction of the star house Hikina (direct east) until we sight land. Then using the northerlies, we were going to head south along the coastline to San Francisco.
So far on our voyage, according to our dead reckoning, we are at 42 degrees and 46 minutes in latitude and we are 497 nautical miles east along our reference course of Hikina since our turn a few days ago. We have winds from the north so we have once again trimmed our sails to set heading instead of steering. So far this morning, it has set us up a bit north of east and we will continue to monitor and trim along the way.
PM Navigation Update: For our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch, we were heading Hikiana course at 6 knots. During this watch, we covered 24 nautical miles eastward to total 520.63 nautical miles of easting total on our voyage. We used the sun that peaked through a few times to check our heading. We changed our head sail from #21 to #33B to get more speed during this watch.
Our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m watch headed Hikina as well at 6 knots average to cover another 24 nautical miles during this watch. So our total easting for our voyage is at 544.63 nautical miles. We are still 106.37 nautical miles north of our reference course to be at 42 degrees and 47 minutes in latitude. We used the swell and wind during this watch since no markers were present.
Our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch used the swells to check for our heading for most of the watch. For all three watches today, we had the hoe (steering paddle) down and trimmed the sails to do the easting. After a few days of steering, we are enjoying the time that we have with the sails trimmed. During our watch, the winds became light and shifted in direction. So at times we were just barely doing 2 knots and heading more south of east than east. Our swells seem to have changed as well and it got confusing since there are no navigation markers present for us to check heading.
After our day today, we believe that we are at 553.13nm East and at 42 degrees and 38 minutes in latitude. The winds died down on us so we think that it will be slow for the next few watches at the least. We hope to get favorable winds to make our easting and fingers are crossed for any navigational clues to show up so that we can check heading and possibly check latitude.
Aug 31 Update
Everybody is happy and healthy and we are adjusting to the colder temperature but still hoping for a little bit more sunlight.
Our crew has just finished another amazing meal from ʻanakala Gary and Keli made dessert!
We saw the sunrise and a few stars throughout the three watches over night! We were so excited to see some of the navigational markers since we were without them for so many days.
AM Navigation Update: For our 6 p.m. -10 p.m. watch, we used the swells and were able to check heading with Hokupaʻa (the North Star) and saw the moonrise. Other than those moments, there was 100% cloud coverage. The short period of time with the stars and the moon gave our crew enough confidence to know that we were heading the right direction. We held the star house ʻĀina Malanai and went Noio Malanai course and gained 13.3 nautical miles easting and 8.83 nautical miles south.
Our 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. watch held the same course for their time and gained another 13.3 nautical miles easting and 8.83 nautical miles south. This watch was able to use the stars Piko o Wakea, Hokulei, Kapuahi, Hokupaʻa, Ke ka o Makaliʻi in order to check our heading.
Our 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. watch averaged Lā Malanai course at 3 knots to cover 11.8 nautical miles east and 2.3 nautical miles south. We had Aʻa rising during our watch for about 10 minutes so we used that to check our heading. Then again, this morning towards the end of our watch we used the sun rising to check our heading.
After our three watches totaling 12 hours, now we covered a total of 591.56 nautical miles east since our departure and we are at 42 degrees and 18 minutes in latitude.
PM Navigation Update: During our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch, we went La Malanai course over water and averaged 3 knots. We covered 11.67 nautical miles East and covered 2.33 nautical miles south during this watch. We used the swells and the sun came out for a bit so we used that to check our heading. The swells were coming from 3 different directions so it was quite confusing but then the sun came out so we could check our heading.
During our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch, we went toward the star house ʻĀina Koʻolau at 4 knots and covered 14.83 nautical miles east and 6.167 nautical miles north. We kept our swell at port aft manu and kept the sun at starboard and used the winds.
During our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch, the winds shifted again and are now coming from the east. So we did a little motoring toward California. We covered 12 nautical miles of easting averaging 3 knots for this watch and our course was Hikina.
SB 72,
Hye Jung
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