Day 151/29

Noon Position: 23 58S 157 28W

Course/Speed: NNW5

Wind: ENE9

Bar: 1018

Sea: NE3

Sky: Overcast; but squall complex with rain

Cabin Temperature: 80

Water Temperature: 78

Sail: Close reaching with big genoa and main

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 68 (It doesn’t help when you tack most of a day over your noon position.)

Miles this leg: 3,481

Avg. Miles this leg: 120

Miles since departure: 20,725

Woke to a brisk wind this morning (brisk being 7 to 9 knots) with enough east in it that we could almost make due north. What’s more, the clouds had new ...

RECYCLED #162. Moxie Marlinspike is a legend in tech. As a programmer, he literally wrote the code that enables everyday encryption. He’s friendly with Edward Snowden and was recently feature in WIRED magazine. Moxie, though, is a sailor at heart. I worked together with him at Broadreach way back in 2008. We caught up to talk about his unique sailing philosophy, his movie ‘HOLD FAST’ & his rise in the tech world.

If you’ve followed the news even tangentially, you’ll have heard about encryption. Remember Edward Snowden? His revelations about the FBI’s mass collection of data from everyday Americans set ...

Day 150/28

Noon Position: 25 06S 157 05W

Course/Speed: NW5

Wind: NNE7

Bar: 1018, falling

Sea: NNE3-5, sloppy chop

Sky: Weird mix of stratus, cumulus and squalls

Cabin Temperature: 79

Water Temperature: 76

Sail: #2, full; main, full; close hauled to starboard

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 92

Miles this leg: 3,412

Avg. Miles this leg: 122

Miles since departure: 20,657

Slow and dull. The sea is blue; the sky is blue, but there is enough hazy and squally cloud to deaden any vividness the day may have wanted to possess. The thermostat achieved 80 degrees Fahreinheit before noon, though it ...

I’m feeling some vindication here. Several years ago when I was Nigel Calder’s regular editor at SAIL Magazine he told me the story of the first time he ever went sailing with Terrie, his future wife. To impress her he’d suggested they borrow (without permission) a small wooden boat that belonged to his brother and take off on a cruise together. She suggested they sail across the English Channel to Amsterdam (they were in the UK at the time) and he readily agreed, though he had little idea what he was doing. Terrie temporarily jumped ship once they got there (to ...

As the title suggests, I’m not confident that I should have taken Gizmo on a 24-hour solo jaunt from Norfolk to Atlantic City in what looked like dicey weather conditions. Some readers may think I endangered myself and others, and they may well have a point. Actually, I’d like to get that discussion out of the way here because I plan several other entries referencing all the real world gear testing that went on.

Why solo? I’m not antisocial, but cruising alone does mean oodles of freedom to do as I please, be it spending all day at anchor working ...

When I first read Uniden’s MHS335B handheld VHF press release, the feature that really intrigued me was “Maritime Industry-First Private Text Messaging.”  The release was a little short on details but did say, “Text directly from your phone to other VHF radios.”  I was left with more questions than answers, but was glad when Uniden kindly loaned me two radios to see all their VHF, GPS, DSC, and texting features hand’s on.

Thinking about the use-cases for the VHF-to-VHF texting, I came up with two scenarios, the first from my own cruising experience.  Cell phone service in the Bahamas ...

Day 149/27

Noon Position: 26 31S 156 37W

Course/Speed: N5.5

Wind: NNW4

Bar: 1019, falling

Sea: W3

Sky: Hazy, high stratus, otherwise clear

Cabin Temperature: 78

Water Temperature: 74

Sail: Motoring

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 108

Miles this leg: 3,321

Avg. Miles this leg: 123

Miles since departure: 20,565

It will be intersting to look back at this leg and my routing strategy with an eye toward what could have been done differently. How could we have made better time–found better air–in this first third of the passage home?

My rationale seemed sound, still does: stay high and get all ...

Day 148/26

Noon Position: 27 46S 155 10W

Course/Speed: NW6

Wind: NNE13

Bar: 1021, falling

Sea: NE4

Sky: Partly Cloudy

Cabin Temperature: 77

Water Temperature: 74

Sail: Full working sail, close hauled on starboard

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 136

Miles this leg: 3213

Avg. Miles this leg: 124

Miles since departure: 20,457

One effect of warming weather as we approach the tropics: those fresh foods which had lasted till now are going off fast. An example is my last loaf of bread, purchased from a bakery in Hobart hours before departure. It had held up well while things were cool, ...