Here comes the Sun

Today the sun came out, it didn't rain, the seas calmed a bit and the winds stopped blasting us from every direction. A big improvement.

We rented a car and drove to over the mountain behind the bay (about 3,000') to Hakahaa for the reception for the Pacific Voyagers (www.pacificvoyagers.org). There we saw all the boats and dancing / presentations by all the crews as well as the Marquesan hosts (a replay of the dancers we saw on Friday). Then we drove over the hill to Hatihieu to visit some archeological sites, then back to Taiohae. The country side is a spectacular display of lush green everywhere, and pretty vertical! We had good reason to have rented a 4WD vehicle for some of the roads. A full day time for sleep.

A night and several days to forget

Changing islands didn't turn out to be quite so simple. What were we thinking?

We departed peaceful Tahutata at dawn. Actually since it was a 65mile trip we began before dawn as the sky was just getting light. We had plenty of wind for a couple of hours as we gybed back and forth to avoid the wind shadow of Hiva Oa, then the wind shut down completely and we motored for about two hours, then it cranked back up to 20kts and we were flying. We arrived at Ua Pou in the late afternoon just as the freighter that supplies the island was leaving. A surprise voice from the past, a guy that I knew in Silicon Valley, popped onto to radio and suggested we stay outside until the ship had finished maneuvering off the dock. We had a problem dropping the main with a fouled line so it was easy to hold off for 30 minutes. When we finally entered, the harbor was full of boats, anchored bow and stern to pack them in tighter. There was no room at the inn! We ended up anchored in an exposed position, not protected by the breakwater, essentially an open roadstead. The wind blasted gusts from every direction and the waves rolled us. We did not sleep and we departed Ua Pou at first light, again, though far less rested.

For our sail to Nuku Hiva we had 20-30kts of breeze, close reaching with a reefed main and reefed jib. It was a little over 25miles and were we were in the harbor at Taiohae in about three hours, and that included raising and lowering sails! It was a quick trip. The last 3-4 miles the waves were pretty impressive with 10-12' seas from the SE combined with a lot of reflection waves from the island while the breeze dropped to only 20kts. Inside the bay it was much calmer, but I immediately noticed that there was still a substantial swell within the bay, and that while the swell was from the south, the boats were all pointing east and there was a band of rain sweeping the anchorage. An indicator of what was to come.

We anchored and quickly realized that the gusts were coming from every direction. The wind on the deck would be 90-180 degrees different than what the wind gauge at the top of the mast indicated, with big blasting gusts. When we were beam to the swell we rolled pretty wildly, sort of a replay of Ua Pou but not quite as bad. We slept a little better, but not well. It was enough to make me think about catamarans!

I had avoided using a stern anchor for three years, but now the time had come. The stern anchor holds the boat into the swell so we don't roll, but it then the anchors have to absorb a side load from the wind which is much more demanding than a straight pull.

Thursday I spent about 2hrs cutting 10' of 3/8" chain from a spare length of 50'. It took 2hrs because my Dremel decided to die half way through the job and the hack saw was difficult to use trying to cut the chain more or less on cockpit sole with no vice (I didn't want haul 50' of 3/8" chain into the galley to use the vice in my "shop". I ended up using the Dremel cutting wheels in a cordless drill. After destroying about 10 cutting wheels I finally got the link cut on both sides so I had a 10' length of chain. I shackled it to a Fortress FX-37 anchor and 150' of 3/4" brait rode. Then we tried to set it.

Setting it is more or less pretty easy, I just throw it off the swim platform. That night it was very stormy and about 3am we got a big squall with some very strong gusts and managed to drag our primary anchor. It reset immediately and it's a large bay so we had plenty of room with no big worries, but were clearly out of position. Everything had to be set again in the morning.

Retrieving the stern anchor was another story. I could hoist it up most of the way with the cockpit winch, the rest of it the retrieval was manually off the back of the swim platform. The anchor only weighs 22lbs, plus another 15lbs for the chain and maybe it's a total of 40lbs max. But dead lifting it over the end of the swim platform, trying to avoid dragging the chain across the edge was not a good back exercise.

On the second set I used more rode on the primary anchor to compensate for the side loads introduced by the stern anchor. That worked well, we have not dragged the primary anchor again, but we dragged the stern anchor about three times. This morning I set it again, backing down very hard on 250' of chain and 100' of 3/4" brait on our primary anchor and when I was convinced I had the primary rode pretty well stretched out, I dropped the stern anchor. It seems to be holding and life onboard is much more comfortable.

The entire time we've been here it has rained and rained and the wind has blown. Everything is wet and Fay thinks the entire boat has turned into a petri dish for mold. There has been no need for sun screen or the bimini. The bay is brown with run off (we won't be using the water maker here) and the mountains have sprouted new waterfalls. However, everything on deck has gotten a really great fresh water wash down!

Apart from anchoring we we've met some other cruisers and had a couple of social nights. Two nights ago we were guests on Sete Mares, a 60' (with 30' beam!) aluminum catamaran. Very nice boat with lots of conversation that included two South Africans making a made dash across the Pacific. The newlyweds bought a boat in Mexico three months ago and plan to sell in Brisbane in November! Then they'll return home and start a family.

Fay has found good shopping for fresh produce and fruit, plus the bread and pastries. The French know how to use butter; the croissants and pain au chocolat are excellent!

Last night, when the squalls stopped, and the full time rain started, we went ashore to attend a benefit for some local children who will be attending an international children's performing arts festival in Spain in a few months. Lots of local dancers and drummers, a big variety of meat and vegetable dishes, and a large supply of beer and wine. We partied all the way past cruisers midnight (9pm). Then we walked back in the rain to the dinghy "dock" (think concrete wall with stainless steel ladder) and tried to find New Morning through the rain and wind. Fortunately John from Sete Mares was chauffeuring us in his center console dinghy with a big outboard so it was a much nicer ride than our dinghy. We needed a good flashlight to discover and avoid unlit boats in the anchorage.

Tomorrow we're renting a car to drive over the mountain to the next set of bays and attend a reception for the Polynesian replica canoes arriving from New Zealand. Check out www.pacificvoyagers.org.

Changing islands

We've been here on Tahuata for a week. We got our important boat chores done (lubricated winches and did an end-for-end swap of our main sheet) and had a lot of lazy time. We had some nice snorkeling where we saw trigger fish, moorish idols and Fay even saw one large black tip shark. We also spent time in the water cleaning up our water line, cutting off the grass that was growing, scrapping off the barnacles we collected on our passage, and generally scrubbing around the waterline.

We re-connected with some friends that we met in the Galapagos and spent time with two boats we've seen on and off since Panama but never actually met. And we generally rested up from the big passage. A very nice week overall and now it's time to move on.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we'll leave at dawn and sail to Hakahau on Ua Pou, about 65 miles to the NE. We don't know how long we'll stay on Ua Pou. It's then a short 25 mile hop over to Taihae on Nuku Hiva, the capital of the Marquesas, when we're ready to move again.

Fresh produce!

Today's picture is of Chef Fay moonlighting at her second job where she is responsible for our flag etiquette. The quarantine flag is being removed, leaving the French and Marquesan flags flying from the lower starboard spreader.

Our visit to Fatu Hiva was clouded by the fact that we had not formally checked into French Polynesia. We were basically illegal immigrants. On Saturday a rumor spread through the anchorage that the gendarmes were coming on Sunday or Tuesday to check papers. The anchorage emptied out on Sunday. We stayed because based on my experience with the gendarmes, while they are very efficient and professional, I could not imagine them working on Sunday.

We hadn't checked in because the official port of entry at Atuona on Hiva Oa is a horrible anchorage. It has lots of surge and is so crowded that boats are lined up with bow and stern anchors to better use the available space. We don't have a stern anchor arrangement and anchoring outside the breakwater overnight would have been untenable. So we did it in two steps. On Monday we moved to Resolution Bay on Tahuata, just 12nm from Atuona on Hiva Oa (yes, there will be test on pronouncing these names). Then we awoke at first light on Tuesday and motored over to Atuona. We anchored outside the breakwater, launched the dinghy, mounted our trusty 2hp engine and roared into the anchorage to a really ugly dinghy dock swarming with dinghies all bashing around on the rocks. We met our agent, drove into town and went straight to the Gendarmerie where we were legally processed into the country and received yet another visa for French Polynesia (our third).

The moment that Fay has been awaiting arrived - fresh produce! While I went to the bank/ATM to stock up on French Polynesian Francs (here they don't take Dollars or even Euros), Fay went to the back of a truck and loaded up on lettuce, tomatoes, and anything green they were selling. Then we went by a store and bought the last of the pain au chocolat and finally to the Post Office where we bought SIM cards for our phones.

Our errands completed we hitched a ride back to the dinghy dock (a few miles is too many to walk in the tropical sun) from a friendly "meals on wheels" van. Back into the dinghy and back onto New Morning. We raised anchor, turned New Morning back to Tahuata and were anchored (see "Where's New Morning) by 1:30pm. Now were legal and can quit looking over our shoulder.

Today we did some boat chores, fastened up a kinking hydraulic cable, cleaned up after a burst gallon of spare engine oil that had leaked across acres of bilge, cleaned up after the water maker's many leaks, searched for an elusive (and possibly non-existent) fresh water leak and then put up the bimini for some shade. And all the while the anchorage that we thought was so small continued to attract new boats. The German's moved out, but no less than four more French boats moved, and one Russian boat! So now there are eight of us in here, two Americans, five French and one Russian.

With such a busy morning, cocktails were moved up to 3pm today! The chef is preparing a spectacular Caesar salad, probably accompanied by a nice European beer like Stella Artois or Becks.

Fatu Hiva

The little picture doesn't begin to do justice to this setting, but maybe it gives you some idea. We're looking east and the island rises 3,000 ft with the top half pretty much constantly shrouded in clouds. Everything is dripping green from the intermittent showers and drizzle. You can just see the small village at the bottom left of the picture below the rock spires.

The real magic is in the late afternoon when the last few hours of sunlight play across the the rocks and vegetation with patches of sun and shadow creating incredibly subtle graduations of green. In this shot you can also see a portion of a rainbow.

Today was rain on and off with the wind spinning all the anchored boat a full 360 degrees several times during the course of the day. But we were mustered some motivation, inflated the dinghy and took the trip ashore. The residents were very friendly and the village totally clean, not a scrap of litter or debris. While we stood under a tree to wait out a period of intense rain we were invited to stand on a woman's porch and then she gave us some bananas to snack on and made small talk in our pathetic French while we waited. A nice introduction to French Polynesia.

Passage summary

A great sleep last night after two bottles of champagne and a culinary tour de force. This is an amazing anchorage. The visual beauty is just stunning. And for entertainment we've had pods of spinner dolphins swimming within 50yds of the boat, leaping out of the water, doing flips or spinning on their tails. Dazzling. Tomorrow we'll get motivated, inflate the dinghy and go ashore. Today we're just lazy on the boat enjoying the quiet.

Here is the summary of our passage from the Galapagos:

Rhumb line (shortest) distance: 2,908 nautical miles
- 3,344 statute miles = SF to NY to Chicago

Distance sailed: 3,098nm
- 3,562 statute miles = SF to NY to St Louis = Paris to Kabul

Duration: 16 days 7 hours (16.3 days)
Miles / day: 190
Best day: 210 miles
Worst day: 171 miles
200 miles days: 4 (plus one day of 199 miles)

Average speed: 7.92kts
Motoring time @ 7.2 kts: 31hrs
Reefs put / taken out: too many to count!

Oatmeal cherry chocolate chip cookies eaten: 36
Beers consumed: 3 (under performed…)
Hours slept: too few
Scrabble: Fay 4 games - Russ 2 games

Anchored in Hanavave

The passage was 3,095 miles, 16 days. Nobody hurt and no major equipment problems.

The anchorage is crowded, our anchor is in 100' and the view is stunning. Google Bay of Virgins, Fatu Hiva for a look. It was the Bay of Penis' until the French priests got here. You'll see the namesake rock formations on the left side of any picture of the bay.

Time for some champagne and sleep.

Land Ho!

Fay has spotted Fatu Hiva on the port bow!

Motoring to the finish

With great reluctance we turned the motor on about midnight. The wind had backed all the way to the east, actually a little north of east, and dropped to about 12kts. We don't fly the spinnaker at night, and without it we could not make more than 5-6kts towards our destination (either gybing down the wind or sailing dead downwind). We could sail to the finish, but we would have to add another day to our trip.

Essentially we have about an 8-10hr arrival window each day. We don't arrive at night, so that eliminates 12 hrs of each day, and we can't plan to arrive too late in the afternoon since any small problem could push us into darkness. Had we continued sailing we would probably have arrived about 5-6pm, too late in the afternoon.

Even motoring we are plagued by the cross seas. We're motoring straight downwind which would normally put the seas behind us. Instead we have seas behind us, but also on our port quarter or beam so we still get rolled around. The sun will rise soon and we'll use our motoring time and power to make water and give New Morning a fresh water wash down. With the salt washed off the deck and lifelines we'll also be able to wash clothes and hang them out to dry.

It's been a long passage (3,000 miles and 16 days). We're tired and a bit cranky. But we also have a nice bottle of champagne in the refrigerator. If everything holds together for about 12 hours we should be drinking that champagne by late Thursday afternoon!

Great morning

A great morning.

Fay observed Jupiter, Venus and Mercury aligned horizontally this morning just before sunrise.

Michelle scored very high on her medical board exams so she'll have lots of choices for her residency.

We're seeing more and more birds which means we're getting close to land (the GPS says 207 miles).

A large pod of dolphins surrounded the boat, the first large pod we've seen in two weeks.

The seas have settled down a bit.

If all goes well we'll put the anchor down tomorrow afternoon.

NOAA's sea state of mind

Last night started beautifully clear, but by 3am there were squalls everywhere and we had rain and squalls until about 9am, then overcast most of the day. Tonight is very clear with a brilliant half moon that set beautifully into a cloud around midnight leaving a dark but star filled sky.

I've decided, or accepted the obvious, that sea state is the most critical component to onboard comfort and sailing performance. In NOAA's sea state and wave period charts the waves are nicely organized and labeled with heights, direction arrows and periods. The sea state depicted on those charts exists only in NOAA's computers or some desk bound meteorologist's mind. They do not exist in the open ocean.

We have had two weeks of the most confused and erratic seas on this passage that I've seen since we crossed the gulf stream in 2008. They do not appear on NOAA's weather faxes. The last two days are particularly odd as New Morning seems to rapidly accelerate and decelerate, like sailing through speed bumps made of peanut butter. She surges forward, then decelerates rapidly, then takes off again. The GPS will show our speed over ground (SOG), dropping from over 8 to 6, then back, in the space of two seconds. Then throw in a lurch or two as we hit a pile of water that bumps New Morning six inches to the left or right. If you're standing, it's usually the six inches that separates a hip from something solid. Add in a steep short wave from near the beam that will New Morning sharply one way then the other so that the mainsail backs with wind, then snaps back hard as we counter roll and the sail is slammed full of air, shuddering the entire boat. I have a preventer set to keep the boom from moving, and a running back stay set to further support the mast. These help reduce the jolts to the spars and hardware, but also help to distribute the shock throughout the boat. It's a feeling with which we never get comfortable.

Erratic movement aside, the wind has dropped a bit to 13-17 and the favorable current is gone. We're left trying to punch through the waves fast enough to reach Fatu Hiva by Thursday mid-day. At 13kts we're underpowered as the waves push us around and our speed drops to the 6's. With 17 kts we're sufficiently powered up to push the water aside and maintain the 7-8kts we need to reach our destination. While the wind speed cycles up and down, the direction also oscillates from roughly east to east-south-east which affects our ability to sail directly to our destination. The next 24hrs of wind speed and direction will determine whether we're sitting at anchor on Thursday night drinking champagne, or hove to 30 miles off shore and bob around waiting for Friday's sunrise.

The Brochure

Yesterday morning we gybed onto starboard to head back north and keep us on track to Fatu Hiva. The wind angle had forced us to sail further south than our desired course so we had no choice but to put some time in going north. Last night was very bouncy, very difficult to sleep. And it followed two squally nights so we were pretty ragged. But then things calmed down this morning and we were both able to get some sleep during the day so we're feeling much better this evening. With more northing in the bank we gybed back this morning and are now able to just about hold course. Maybe one more short starboard hitch.

We have 606 miles to go so I'm expecting to arrive very early on the morning of Thursday the 12th. Since we don't make landfalls at night we'll probably have to heave to for a few hours somewhere so we can match our arrival with the sunrise on Thursday. Funny how our perspective has changed and now 600 miles seems like the "home stretch". That's longer than from San Francisco to San Diego, or about like Newport to Bermuda, neither of which would have seemed like a short distance a few years ago.

Fay and I often talk about "the brochure". A usage example is "this was not in the brochure". Pounding into 30kts with waves breaking over the hard dodger on the way to Bermuda was not in the brochure. We've concluded that going east in the tropics is not in the brochure. Most of this passage has not been in the brochure. The brochure showed pictures of long smooth Pacific swells with a 16 second period which we would glide over at 8kts while a 1kt current pushed us gently towards French Polynesian paradise. Instead we've had mostly short steep wind waves from the SE pushing us into a SW swell, combined with who knows what else to create what a cruiser on the net this morning described as a "washing machine". I think she had a rough night also.

But tonight is probably in the brochure. A quarter moon is lighting up the cockpit and reflecting off the ocean from the starboard bow to the horizon. We're broad reaching in 18-22kts of true wind with a reefed main, reefed jib. With a steady 8+kts and about .5kt of current we did 104 miles from noon to midnight which suggests we'll have another 200 mile day. When the waves align correctly the autopilot guides us down their faces at over 11kts. A full set of stars illuminates the sky and the only squalls on the radar are a dozen miles away. Most importantly the boat is not jumping around spasmodically as she's slapped from side to side by confused seas; she's just slicing through the water. The waves aren't entirely orderly, but the rambunctious ones come in sets and not often enough to destroy the illusion.

Three hours later, my midnight to three watch. The breeze is up slightly to 20-23kts and our motion is a little bumpier. The moon has set, leaving a much darker night. New Morning is not so much gliding along as she is rushing through the darkness with conviction. It's in the fine print of the brochure.

Squally squally night

More squalls last night. They started at sunset and are still coming through at 9:30am this morning. Very little sleep last night with reefs going in/out, and even a brief period of motoring when the breeze dropped below 10kts for 20 minutes. This morning the seas are much larger and very confused so we're rolling around quite a bit, sometimes violently. It's amazing how fast New Morning's 45,000lbs can move when a wave drops out from underneath her.

Half way there with Chez Fay

Actually that's a pretty poor title, but it's 2:20am. Decomposing it, this entry is about passing the half way point to the Marquesas, and also about dining on board. The first point is self explanatory, the second is long overdue and could require pages.

Chez Fay is what we call our onboard dining experience. To cut to the chase, Fay serves up amazing meals night after night.

Her first challenge is provisioning. She provisions both with long term planning, like bringing key items in our luggage from California, and opportunistically along the way from local fisherman, sport fisherman, good grocery stores and local farmer's markets. She's always on the lookout for what is available. Preparing for our Pacific crossing and time in French Polynesia (where availability is still an issue and prices are reported to be very high) she did weeks of planning and shopping in Panama. Two months after our Panama departure, New Morning is still fairly bursting with food. Both freezers are entirely full of fish (from a sport fishing boat) and meat, the liquor cabinet has been turned into a pantry of canned goods, the wine locker is full of beer (and some box wine), the starboard deck locker is stuffed with gin, tonic, rum and coke, and the drawers under the forward bunk are also full of gin and vodka. I'm pretty sure we do not need to do any further shopping this year!

And what becomes of all these ingredients? Well for this passage the liquor is pretty much locked away, though last night we did have a couple of beers to celebrate passing the half way mark. But what about dinners?

Our first meal out was spaghetti and meat balls. So you're thinking, "big deal, you open a jar of spaghetti sauce". Not quite. Fay spent an entire afternoon preparing her own sauce which even included herbs from her onboard herb garden. And the meatballs are not just rolled up hamburger, their crafted from an ancient German recipe. The meal was complimented with my own artisan white bread.

Then we had stir fried shrimp with rice and vegetables. How about salmon with a papaya sauce and papaya/avocado salad? Or steak fahitas (sp?) with a greek salad of tomatoes, red onions, feta, cucumber, etc. Tonight, one day in advance of Cinco de Mayo, we had chicken quesadillas with fresh guacamole and Presidente cerveza.

All of this while she's also taking half the watch time and we're bouncing along through confused seas at 8 kts churning out 200+ mile days.

The creative meals keep coming and we eat well! Chez Fay, where the discriminating sailor dines nightly.

Night of the living squalls

Yesterday was busy.

In the morning we hove to for about 30 minutes to fix a problem with the transom shower. "Heaving to" is how we "park" the boat in the ocean. We don't really stop, but we slow to about 2.5kts, in a fairly stable position and it feels like we've stopped with a fairly gentle motion.

After my shower two days ago we had large amounts of water entering the aft cockpit locker and our main fresh water tank was entirely emptied in about two hours. Connecting the dots, we feared a recurrence of a problem which caused the shower hose to be sucked into a steering sheave (block the cable runs through). Since we didn't want to give up our showers, and we needed to confirm there was no problem with the steering, we needed to empty and disassemble the transom locker to accurately diagnose and hopefully repair the problem. I steered while Fay, wearing her harness and clipped to the boat, kneeled on the swim platform and passed me the entire contents of the locker, then the panels of the locker itself (long since left unscrewed for easy access). All the while the ocean lapped up onto the swim platform as we slowly drifted backwards so that she was working while standing in about 6" of water.

Behind the panels she found that the hose was not in a sheave (good), but the hose connection to the boat's plumbing was loose and leaking (bad). A few twists with a pair of pliers and all was good. I handed her the locker parts and contents in the reverse order and she reassembled the locker and restored the contents. The whole drill took about 30 minutes. We tacked through the wind, eased the sails and we were off and rolling again.

In the afternoon our wish for lighter winds came partially true as the wind moved aft which reduced our apparent win and improved our angle on the seas, smoothing our our ride. But it was a short respite.

Just as Fay was handing up dinner about 5pm local time, a series of line squalls came through. The wind rose to 24-28kts and it began raining. We liked the fresh water rinse, but not the series of events. Over the next four five hours we had three different series of squalls. The wind would increase dramatically, we'd race off for 30 minutes, then the wind would drop just as quickly as it rose and shift way aft to directly behind the boat at only 8-10kts and leave us with the sails slamming around violently. I motored briefly between the 2nd and 3rd and then after the 3rd until they had passed through entirely. Of course nobody got any sleep during this time and there was tons of work with reefs going in and out, jib being rolled up and unfurled, etc. etc. Finally about 10:30 things settled down and we were sailing again.

Then about 4am, during Fay's sunrise watch, the fatigue took its toll and Fay hit the wrong button on the autopilot. The boat swung up into the wind, began to roll wildly and the sails flogged with a deafening sound. Continuing with the horror movie theme, Fay let out a scream for help that would have impressed any fan of the genre. I leaped from my sound sleep in terror, envisioning that Fay had gone overboard and I had to find her in the water in the dark (our worst fear). Fortunately she was in the cockpit and working together we had the boat straightened out in a few minutes, back on course and sails trimmed. The whole episode proved that our ear plugs would not prevent us from being roused in an emergency, and confirmed my doctor's repeated assessments that my heart was in good shape. I took about an hour to get back to sleep.

We did 194 miles yesterday and should pass the half way point later today.

One third of the way

We could have celebrated 25%, 50%, 75%, arrival, but since the overall trip is about 3,000 miles, we've decided our milestones are 1/3, 1/2 and 2/3. Today was 1/3. We celebrated by splitting a beer at dinner.

We've consistently had about 5kts more wind than the forecast. And this evening while the forecast is for 15, we have 20-22. It may not seem like much, but the force of the wind on the sails (and on the seas) rises with the square of the velocity. That means that 22kts of wind is more than twice as much force as 15. It means we need half as much sail area and it means the seas get pushed up with twice as much force, making bigger waves.

Basically, it's just more wind than we need. We'd be more comfortable and moving only slightly slower with 15kts. Yesterday we did 210 miles and today we did 206, but we'd gladly have 190 mile days in return for a smoother ride.

As far as I can figure out, the confused and lumpy seas we're experiencing are the result of three sets water moving in different directions. First there is the prevailing SW swell which is apparently the result of the winds in the Southern Ocean at 40-50 degrees south latitude. Those waves disperse and span out in the South Pacific where there are no land masses to block them. Then there are the waves generated by the SW trade winds, theoretically blowing at 13-15, but in our experience more like 15-25. Then there is the west bound current. The current is mostly a product of the wind, but over a huge area and doesn't follow the path of the local wind. I estimate that we've had .5 - .8 kts of current. So there is water and energy moving in three different directions, SW to NE, SE to NW and E to W, constantly bumping into each other. The result is a lot of vertical water, wave fragments and general chaos.

And water is very heavy, about 62lbs / cubic ft.. So the wave fragment that might be just 10' x 6' x 2' that slaps up against us, weighs over 7,000 lbs. It's like two SUVs running into New Morning. She gets slapped around. And gravity does some of the work as well when a wave lifts her up on one side and there is nothing to support her other side, so she tilts or lurches.

As you've probably figured out by now, we're a little tired of being slapped around and we'd like to dial back the wind a bit, let the waves drop down a bit, and have a smoother ride for the second two thirds.