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November 17, 1998

San Francisco to Hawaii, Second Attempt. Update #57

57. Date: Tue, 17 Nov 98 04:52:39 GMT
Latitude: 20 degrees 36.356 minutes North
Longitude: 152 degrees 04.038 minutes West
Wind NE, Force 4
Heading 235 degrees(M)

Now we're into the final furlong. It seems like we've been blessed by the Gods with this northeasterly wind at our stern. Having sweated and bullied our way south the last 4-5 days we are now in a prime position for our final approach. We just have to make one mile south for every four miles west to make the final 200 miles west and 50 south.

If we were in a sail boat right now, it wouldn't be such a big deal; quite sizable, last minute adjustments to changes in wind direction would be entirely feasible. Not so for us though, being so limited in our ability to maneuver. In addition it's a pretty small chunk of earth we're trying to hit making the stakes all the more high.

It would be a disaster to miss Hawaii for more than a few reasons, one of the main ones being our food supply. We still have plenty of Pasta Primavera (which we both detest) but we are rapidly running scarce on the things we do like and that have been the principle insp/tns in keeping us going all these 100's of miles; The M&M's ran out 3 days ago (actually there are some in our contingency food reserves in the very back of the stern compartment, but neither of us feel brave enough to venture back there), the last peanut butter jar was ceremoniously licked clean by one of us in the middle of the last night (no one has owned up to the crime yet), and the remaining 1/2" of apricot jam has started to ferment as of today. If we missed Hawaii now there'd be a VERY unhappy Moksha crew heading south to The Gilbert Islands by this week end.

Our current ETA is late Thursday PM or more likely Friday AM Hawaii time.

KIT KORNER - SAFETY GEAR Being at such a disadvantage with our size limited ability to maneuver, we take safety extremely seriously. The key to our avoiding a collision with other shipping lies in the amount of time either we or they have to take evasive action. And with a horizon of only 15 miles maximum, a freighter can be on top of us in less than 20 minutes -not much time at all. We therefore have a pretty fool proof system involving some key pieces of equipment that has kept us well clear of other vessels the past 50 days. The first notification we have of an approaching vessel usually comes in the form of an audio alarm from our OCEAN SENTRY (Pains Wessex). This is an active Radar Target Enhancer (RTE) that 'wakes up' on receiving radar from another vessel, sounds an alarm to 'wake us up' as it were, and then returns an amplified signal back to the host vessel giving us a Radar Cross Section(RCS) of 50 square meters. Basically it makes us appear to be a lot bigger than we really are on their radar screen, and increases the chances of them taking a small boat like us seriously. Often the OCEAN SENTRY will pick up vessels beyond our visual horizon -giving us that added confidence of an early alert.

The only draw back to RTE's is the radar image drops off in the last mile of the radar. For this purpose and in the event our electrical power failing we use a LENSREF passive reflector (Varigas) -the most efficient passive radar reflector on the market.

In conjunction with the OCEAN SENTRY we have a COLLISION AVOIDANCE RADAR DETECTOR (Survival Safety Engineering) or CARD whose job it is to monitor an approaching vessel once over the horizon, giving us its approximate heading and whether it is coming closer or moving away. The intensity of the audio and visible alarms also indicate how close the vessel is getting. Both our OCEAN SENTRY and the CARD work well together in covering all possible blind spots in collision avoidance.

Finally we use a pair of TASCO Offshore 54 waterproof binoculars to be able to track the heading of a vessel using its built-in compass that has an internal light for night use also. On a number of occasions we've found this bit of kit to be invaluable in assessing whether a vessel is on a collision coarse with us or not; if the vessel's course changes, we know we are OK. If not, we need to know about it sooner rather than later -using our ICOM VHF radio to make contact or in the worst scenario, firing one of our Pains Wessex flares to make our presence known.

Lewis & Smith,
The Moksha crew

Posted on November 17, 1998 7:51 PM