CD-27 San Francisco to Hawaii Passage

[Ed Rant]

Received this 6/11 from Russ Cooper, 1980 CD-27 ENCINITAS, Hull #160, out of San Francisco. Russ bought his boat around the same time I did (in fact, I had tried to buy ENCINITAS before eventually buying PATRICIA, a 1981 CD-27, but he beat me to her) at Island Moorings in Port Aransas, TX. He did a major overhaul of her in Rockport, TX, removing her 8hp diesel and installing an outboard before subsequently moving her to Corpus Christi. A few years later he trucked her out to San Francisco where he now lives. He and his brother Ron are real sailors.

"Aloha friends,

So it turns out Hawaii is really far by boat! But Ron and I arrived
safely in Hilo last Saturday after 24 days at sea aboard Encinitas. It
was a truly great experience; one of the most challenging things I've
done in my life, and therefore one of the most rewarding.

For those who are interested, what follows is a
"stream-of-consciousness" type of response to some of the questions
I've been asked. The great-circle route from San Diego to Hilo is just
short of 2200 nautical miles. We sailed more than that because we had
winds on the nose to start. Covering that distance in 24 days is a
good time for a 30-35' cruising boat, so we feel pretty good about
doing that in little ol' Encinitas. The boat was awesome frankly; far
stronger than skipper or crew.

Crew was my brother Ron, who served as: 1st mate; chief engineer (great
ideas, such as twin-headsails); entertainment officer (ukulele
concerts, yahtzee, cribbage, etc.); bosun, cook, etc. And he was
awesome crew. And believe it or not we didn't have so much as a heated
discussion, got along great. That's due in part to fact that two
people on a small boat making an ocean passage rely heavily on each
other. I can't imagine how single-handed sailors do it.

Once we were offshore (100 nm), we only saw one ship the entire way to
Hilo - a container ship on day 5, probably headed to Panama. We were
buzzed low and slow by a Navy A6 plane on two occasions while still
near SD; came out of the east just to look at us, flash us with their
bombs underneath the wings, then return. As far as wildlife goes, we
saw lots of shark fins, a few porpoises, zillions of those little jelly
fishes with the 'sails' on top, albatrosses, and various petrel-like
birds. But the stars were the flying fish. They actually flap their
fins and can change direction mid flight. A school mid air would bank,
turn and dive back in, looking like WWII dive-bombers. The scariest
moment of the passage occurred about 2:00AM, when I was on watch in the
cockpit (very tired, half-asleep) and got pegged square on the chest by
a flying fish. It felt like taking a soft punch, but I nearly jumped
out of my skin, and it took a few moments for me to figure out what
happened.

We had a full moon mid-passage which was great. Later on skies were
clearer and we saw awesome stars in the intensely dark night. Ron
identified the ISS couple of times. Had some great simultaneous
sunrise/moonsets. The horizon feels truly infinite when you're out
there, hard to describe but it's very cool.

Weather wise, we really had it pretty good. Worst weather was 25 knots
of wind, 8' seas, counter swell, decks constantly awash, heavy spray in
the cockpit. Boat was great, but we would periodically drop into an
extra deep trough, felt like we were falling through a trap-door. But
that only lasted for couple of days. On the flip-side, we had several
days of very light winds, even becalmed for periods, where the ocean
looked like a mill pond. Due to atypical weather patterns, we really
didn't reach the trade winds until more than half-way through. When we
got there, had great steady winds with frequent mild squalls, made
really good time. First half of trip was really cold at night (low
50s, same as water temp), then progressively warmer as we headed into
the tropics.

Our slowest 24 hour run was day one, just 36 nautical miles; it was
painful trying to get offshore in the light So Cal winds. Keep in mind
no auxiliary propulsion - outboard was stowed below. Our best 24 hour
run was 124 nautical miles, day 7, mostly beam reaching in strong NW
breeze.

We had some gear failures: fried voltage regulator, parted luff line in
jib (while hoisting sail to leave SD!), pretzled pad eye for whisker
pole, cracked water tank (from rough weather), broken instrument
mounts; none of which were big deals. The big deal was when the paddle
shaft on the NAVIK self-steering vane sheared off 400 miles from Hilo.
Had to steer the boat manually from that point on, which dramatically
changed life aboard. Instead of the person on-watch adjusting sails
and trolling generator, cooking, making repairs, etc., the person off
watch had to do all that. So out went reading and listening to music
when off watch, and in came fatigue. Before the NAVIK became a eunuch,
it had been operating fine.

We ate pretty well all things considered. We used much less than 1/2
of the food and water (50 gallons) that we brought. A trolling
generator and solar panel provided power for lights, music, shortwave
radio (for weather), etc. Watches varied: 3hours initially; 6 hour
watches at night for most of the passage; then 2 hours when the NAVIK
broke.

Even though Mauna Kea is almost 14,000' high and only 40 miles or so
inland, we didn't make landfall until about 30 miles out due to cloud
cover. It was only a small dark area below low-hanging clouds, but we
yelled our "Land-Ho"s and were pretty excited. We are now moored
Tahiti style in Radio Bay, surrounded by Matson containers as Hilo is
the big port on Hawaii Is. Hilo is a cool little town that has been
passed by with time; makes it low key and relaxing. Headed over to
Kona coast next, then on to Maui, Molokini, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu and
Kauai over the next couple of months.

I hope you all are doing well. If you're going to be out in the
islands, please shoot me an e-mail at russ_cooper@yahoo.com.
Today is King Kamehameha day here, so I'm
off to the local party on Coconut Island.

Cheers,
Russ"





cd27@txdirect.net

[Warren Kaplan]

What a great voyage! Marvelous! And to think Sine Qua Non is an alumnus of that same CD27 Class of 1980! Only 6 boat younger as hull #166! Captain Goldsmith, are you reading this!!

Warren Kaplan



Setsail728@aol.com