San Diego to Nuka Hiva Day 8-9
http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2007/05/07/san-diego-to-nuka-hiva-day-8-9/
Position and Time: N 16-47 by W 126-45 at 2355 UTC May 6, 1084 miles from
San Diego
Speed and Course: 6.1 knots, 210 degrees true, 1600rpm
Wind: 7 knots at 210 degrees relative
Waves: 6-8 foot swells at 10-12 seconds, 3-4 foot wind waves.
The trip meter went over 1000. We are officially arrived to the vicinity of
the middle of nowhere! Pretty soon we will be half way, which is still the
middle of nowhere.
Yesterday, we deployed the paravane fish. We wanted to see how much it
helped with the roll. It helped some, slowed us down, as expected. We
decided that the fish didnt stop enough of the roll to justify the loss of
speed, so we put the fish back in their holders after a day. It was a bit
tricky to bring them in out of the open ocean, but we did it.
We are still experiencing good size waves from the front at regular
intervals, while simultaneously getting hit every couple minutes by big
waves from the side. The side waves are the ones that make us roll a lot.
The last several days the seas have been confused, which mean waves seem
to be coming from several directions. We have white caps on some, which also
slows us down. We decided to up the RPM to 1600, which still gives us over
20% reserve to reach Nuka Hiva.
It is 3:30 pm as I write this, and the sun has just finally peeked out from
behind the clouds for the first time in days. It has been completely
overcast almost the whole time  no sun, no sunrises or sunsets, no moon, no
stars have been seen for most of the trip. The two days we had some sun
earlier in the week were followed by evenings of scattered clouds, and those
two nights the full moon reflected brilliantly off the seas (when not hidden
behind a cloud).
We saw our first sailboat out here. Well, first the radar alarm went crazy
telling us something was out there, and later we were able to visually spot
it with the binoculars. It eventually crossed our bow at about 1.5 miles. We
tried to hail the vessel (call it on the radio for those who do not speak
boat), but there was no response. The sailboat looked to be about 40 feet
and was pounding head first into the brutal seas. And we thought we had it
rough!
Still no luck catching a fish, but we have not tried too much since we
realized the fillet table is stowed pretty deep and still needs to be
assembled. We just didnt get to it before we left. Oh well  if we had
waited to get to everything before we left, wed still be at the dock.

Glad you got a chance to put the fish out.  I noticed you said that things got better and then it got me to thinking about the various settings on the TRAC Stabilizers.  Which setting have you been using for Heel??  I've learned to use the Max setting, when we did our two day stint of the the east coast we got about a 1/2 to 3/4 of a knot boost over the Opt setting.  The ride had a bit more roll to it, but we found that better then some of the snap we would get every once in a while with the more strict setting.

I'm glad all is well, and have a safe trip.

John Ford
KK44 Feisty Lady
Annapolis City Marina

I've gotten a few emails that suggest people think I'm on the boat with Eric
and Christi.  Alas, I'm in the final throws of putting our house on the
market, which means trips to the dump, managing workers putting in carpet
and painting the house and a million other details.  If you would like to
send messages to Christi and Eric, you can leave comments on their blog at:

www.kosmos.liveflux.net

Eric is answering email that is sent to him.

I'm forwarding his blog posts to the T&T list so we can follow his trip

Thanks!  Scott Bulger, Alanui, N40-48, Seattle WA