leapt at the bows. We turned west at the Tropic of Cancer and slipped into that special slot of ocean that sailing ships were created for. We sailed down the trade winds at speeds up to 18 knots. But the wind gave too much of a good The predicted force of the gale didn’t frighten me as much as the fact that we had to sail right into the teeth in an untried ship thing. The constant pressure of the trade winds and the gusting squalls in the night exceeded the work load of the genoa and mule sails, which were slowly tearing. We would have to stop in Honolulu to fix the sails. Unfortunately, our sailing plan had brought us south and downwind of Honolulu. Going to windward meant putting greater stress on our already compromised headsails. Our strategy was to beat against the 15 to 20 knot southeasterly trades with the boomed sails only. Without sails our speed would be greatly reduced, but we could use the engines if needed. We set our trajectory for a channel between Oahu and Molokai Islands, and the detour strategy went as planned, for a while. That is, until the Hawaii Coast Guard issued a gale warning for 34www.canvasback.org
4 Publizr Home