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October 6, 1998

San Francisco to Hawaii, Second Attempt. Update #15

15. Date: Tue, 6 Oct 98 03:06:50 GMT
Latitude: 34 degrees 40.920 minutes North
Longitude: 126 degrees 06.660 minutes West

Starting to hear things... People's voices mingled with the murmur of the ocean and boat sounds. Just now while making water with the desalinator a wave drenched me in the open cockpit. I could have sworn I heard a woman's voice laughing behind me straight away after. A cheeky mermaid perhaps? "Great!" I thinks to myself... "It's only 7 days out and I'm losing it already..."

Last night a strong force 5-6 wind from the north brought 25-30 foot waves with white caps like short, sharp daggers jabbing at our beam. It threatened to capsize us on a couple of occasions. Pedaling by the light of the moon, Steve and I took it in turns to wrestle with the ocean, trying to keep control of the boat whilst still underway.

The key in seas like these is to keep the boat at 45 degrees to the waves. At 180 degrees the boat will surf at hi speed down the front of the waves and eventually corkscrewing, broaching and capsizing with not a damn thing you can do about it because the rudder is traveling at the same speed as the water. Traveling parallel (90 degrees) to the waves will potentially result in the same thing as a rogue white cap could push us over in a fraction of a second. At 45 degrees though, you can feel the personalty of a particular wave. Its power, direction, etc. as it coils itself under the stern and before it unleashes itself. This gives the intuitive part of the experienced helmsman a fraction of a second to throw the rudder one way or the other to avert disaster and use the wave to maximum advantage... Like a bull rider riding steer. It's pretty intense and exhilarating but potentially disastrous if you don't get it quite right, like the time Steve was nearly washed away on the Atlantic.

By dawn we were both exhausted having slept little. But spirits remain high as we are screeching along at a mean lick, 45 miles in 12 hours! Outstanding stuff... Our performance to date has ben 22% higher than the Atlantic crossing largely due to our superb new drive train and a hand crafted propellers by Pitchometer . The Propellers and direct drive pedal units are from MicroMarine . If you fancy wings for your boat or getting into shape like we are in a pedal boat, check-out their web sites respectively. -Jason

Lewis & Smith,
The Moksha crew

Posted on October 6, 1998 5:31 PM