A Dream of Solo Sailing to Hawaii in a Small Boat Lost after self-steering failure

Hello friends. I've been waiting for this day for years and years and years. We're untying the lines for good and I'm about to point to Hawaii. Let's get it going. I love you puppy. I love you Camille. Let's go. Love you. Just rounded the lighthouse for the last time for a very long time. It's blowing like 17 kind of on the nose. Pretty choppy like three foot seas. I'm allowing myself the luxury of motoring past Catalina and and if there's not a good point of wind I'll motor all the way to Santa Barbara Island but then I shut off the motor and I won't be motoring any time the rest of the trip except entering Honolulu. Beautiful sunny day out and good wind if we were on the right point not beating into it but our wind vane's doing the job holding our course in these choppy seas and yeah get past all of our local islands and then I can just relax a little bit. I'll be out of the shipping lane and So we made an unexpected stop last night here at Cat Harbor. Got in at 9 21 tied up to the mooring. Yesterday when we were sailing we were beating into 17 knot headwinds. The seas were only like just over a meter but they were a short period and we're the problem was we're beating into everything um and the wind vane did great but I started seeing some like weird movement in the the um what they call the mast on it so I went and checked and the top two mounting bolts holding it to the bracket had started like working themselves loose and um I didn't dare like take it out and try to put on a lock washer at sea because of the loads that were on it. I hadn't passed Catalina yet and I was like this is the most important piece of gear on the entire boat for an ocean passage so I um yeah I ducked in here and picked up a mooring so that I could deal with this. I'm gonna put thread sealant on the inside and then add a lock washer and then cinch it down and um hope that solves the problem. Other than that I found one little there's actually two leaks but one that I can deal with so far um yeah so get that wind vane secured down so that she doesn't come loose um and uh get back out to sea. Okay got the wind vane sorted put sealant on this fitting that was leaking um now time to just get the boat ready and uh push up. Well the time has arrived to turn off the motor and unless there's a tragedy or something like that um I won't be using the motor for propulsion for the rest of the trip. The wind's up to 18 knots right now apparent and um the seas are bucky the wind point isn't great but I'll just alter course a little and deal with the seas and the wind as they are. So let's get the motor turned off. It's very rolly pretty big seas been trying to point to kind of you know not bash into them too much but might have to do some southing before I start making our correct course for Hawaii. Brutal brutal brutal night. We have between 20 and 25 knots of wind since 4 p.m. yesterday it's like 9 p.m. today 9 a.m. today. I'm super seasick. We have just been getting hammered with gnarly waves. I took the third reef last night. The deck side decks were like rivers. We are shipping a lot of water I think through that aft little hatch like waves just pour over that thing I think it's just going straight into the bilge. The automatic bilge pump decided to stop working which I would sort out if I wasn't going to throw up every time I ******* move my head. So I've been uh using the emergency bilge pump to empty the bilge like every 20 minutes all night crash course in ocean sailing solo. Super tough. This is morning of day five since departing Los Angeles. Day four since leaving Cat Harbor after the repair on the wind vane. It's the first morning I feel human again and um boy it has been a really really rough go to this point. The seas have finally like calmed down into like regular ocean state seas and the winds have kind of leveled out. They've been at like 14 to 15 knots since like 7 p.m. last night. So we haven't been completely awash with waves like we were the first three days and those big seas really kind of killed progress in a bad way. So put a little more sail and I got up at midnight and shook out the third reef. I went to sleep at like 8 30 last night and the winds were down to like 12 13 knots. I didn't trust it. I'd had like 25 to 30 knot winds every night for the previous couple nights. I was like I don't trust it and then at midnight we were bobbing around like crazy because we had the third reef in and like no wind. So I went up shook out the third reef got us going so it stabilized the boat but at least now we're not hammering into giant waves like we have been. Just paid a little bit a little bit more headsail out trying to get some speed on us just trying to just trying to round up the waves will round us up sometimes and we'll end up I'll have to go out and just grab the tiller and we'll just do a big circle. But yeah see what the day brings. I think the first day out of Catalina we did 85 nautical miles. The second day was like 74. That was the worst day when it was like 25 to 30 knot winds and like 8 to 10 foot there were some 12 foot seas for sure. I was standing on the foredeck or on the side deck. I can't remember what I was always lashing some of the diesel cans down tighter and we like dropped into came up over the top of a wave and dropped down into its trough and it felt very similar to like dropping into a giant cement ball on a skateboard. So I was like oh this is about 12 feet and it's like she just rode down and rode up the other side but yeah and there are many times waves would break and I would see this side of the port lights completely covered in water and this side of port lights completely covered in water and the dodger is worth her weight in gold. She's taken so many direct hits and just like did a great job and even with the dodger and the washboards in and the companionway shut we would get hit by some waves that would just shoot water into the cabin so everything in here is wet. I didn't get a ton of filming done those first couple of days because I was just trying to survive. So this is the first morning I feel like having breakfast so I'm gonna have some granola start my day and yeah well terrible news for me. The wind vane is working itself loose off of the boat. I'm like 200 and something miles off the coast of California. Obviously if it's already coming loose it's not going to last another 2,000 miles and then to Alaska. So much to my dismay I'm going to turn around and head back to California now. No other option. Super bummer especially considering the first three days were you know so terrible. It kept losing course today and I couldn't figure out why and I kept I checked it every day I'd gone back and checked it and then today like four of the bolts had worked themselves loose instead of just the two. Even the two that I had tightened up. So I think I have to like take the wind vane off and like re-thread those holes to make it work proper. Maybe the threads are stripped out. ------- nightmare man. So I guess my dreams are being diverted in another direction. Yeah such a ******* bummer but better it happened here than a thousand miles out because doing this trip with no wind vane would have been I mean it's possible but it would have been terrible. So yeah I guess point back to California and then figure out you know new cruising plans. I gave it my best shot. Okay time to turn this boat around. Here we go turning the boat around. Need to point 61 degrees. Maybe it'll be easier sailing. Well I got the boat turned back around. Should be sailing into lighter winds but now it's like not in a rush for anything at this point. Next time these bolts kind of start I'm gonna have to tighten those things up kind of twice a day I think. I'll show you I'll get some video of you guys so you can see where they're coming apart at. The funny thing is like the dude I bought this from tried to take this he was gonna use this to sell to Hawaii. Like he sailed with this one from San Francisco to San Diego and then he was gonna use it to sell from San Diego to Hawaii and then said he like I don't know one of the mounting brackets is broken but he said he broke it taking it off and he just bought a monitor replacement and then sailed to Hawaii with this brand new monitor. I wonder if this was happening to him on the way down and he just didn't tell me when I bought it. I was still gonna buy it if he had told me I could have just like you know dealt with it but that's the problem with not having enough time to sea trial it. So gotta be flexible. So one of the bolts has stripped completely out. I'll show you which bolt it is. I'm like 250 miles off the coast. I have my tiller pilot but I'm worried about these seas breaking over and like killing it as well. So I think I'm just gonna lash the wind vane on the back and hope for the best. I'll show you what's up with it. So this bolt is just like shot. You can't tighten it down. I'm gonna like duct tape it so that it can't come out so at least it holds this in place and then lash the whole thing to the boat and then just keep tightening the other bolts as I go and see what that does. One benefit is like it's supposed to I'm supposed to be coming into some light light winds in the next two days. I have to do calculations and see how much fuel how far I could motor with the fuel I have. I have like 10 gallons on the rail and then like I don't know maybe seven gallons in my tank. So time to do some lashing on this and then figure out if I should start motoring now or wait a couple days. Well I finally got the boat to get to sailing. I'm clipping off some miles. The forecast said we were supposed to have really light winds right now but I have the full main up and only like 110 percent of the headsail. There's supposed to be really light winds later tonight and then tomorrow so I need to kind of make as many miles as I can to get in closer to the outer islands. Once I get to the outer islands then I can motor sail through some of those calms. I just don't have a lot of fuel. She's cruising right now. This is the best she's sailed this entire trip but we're not smashing into like 12 foot waves either. So enjoying my lee cluffs I put in my little berth nest. It is like very chilly outside. It's been really warm though the whole rest of the all the other days it was really nice and warm and I could even go out in shorts but it's really chilly out there right now. So yeah just pointing for Cat Harbor and get in there. I'll probably get a mooring for a night or two so I can get the ground tackle all set up the right way and then I'll be under anchor after that. And I guess the plan now is for Camille and Steady to come out and meet me at Catalina and yeah spend a couple days and talk about the future. Get everything sorted out but I'm just like obsessing with Navionics and Predict Wind and looking at our course. It's been hard to get her to point where I want her to point because I made so much southing because of that all that wind and seas that I just want to be able to get back up in the right zone. So that's the update it's like I don't know nine o'clock 8 49 on I think this is day five charging back such a bummer. It's been a very dark day for me but completely out of my hands nothing I can do about it and I'm taking on water somewhere I don't know where so that's an issue and and I'm not sure if I even talked about it earlier in the recordings but the bilge pump stopped working like the first day out and which normally isn't an issue because we don't we have almost no water that comes to the boat but we were shipping a lot of water with water coming over the decks on those first like three days of all the really bad winds because there were so many seas breaking over Tritia that that aft lazarette was just like water was pouring into it and it was coming to the bilge. I've been the first night out of Catalina Harbor I had to hand use the emergency hand pump in the bilge like every 15 minutes not that it was getting deep but the high water alarm would go off and I just didn't want it to ever get away from me so yeah that whole night it was like as soon as it would start beeping I would get up hand pump it out and yeah it's definitely subsided a lot since we haven't been taking on the seas like that but I don't know something else I have to sort out just sitting here sailing in 14 14 knots apparent wind thinking about what to do next it's 3am sails are just sliding around like crazy but there's like these big giant like I don't know if they're moon jellies floating underwater by us if the spreader lights are off they're like glowing can't see it on the gopro but I'll see if I can show you guys one I counted four leviathans at the surface at once I don't know how many are in this pod I'll have to look up what type of whale they are and put the text on the screen right now because I'm not terribly familiar with whale fin identification um they're big um wow so big so cool right in the middle of like re-hooking up the anchor and these like beautiful beasts just appear slowly feeding 100 miles off of Catalina 7 p.m day seven it's like breeze kind of popped up out of nowhere been motor sailing for the last 24 hours and with both headsail and mainsail out all day which had given us an advantage it's blowing like 14 15 apparent right now as soon as it came up and we started heeling over I put the second reef in so the boat would try to stay a little flat comfortable and efficient and it's dusting pretty good right now um briefed in the headsail killed the engine I have like half a tank of fuel left and I'm 50 miles from Catalina I'm certain that I could get there on that fuel but I want to have a little bit to play with um I definitely wouldn't want to run out trying to anchor and I may have plenty but better be safe than sorry I'm going to sail again you know how these winds are at sunset in California anyway they come up kind of blow themselves out when the sun goes down but we'll see it's been a wild road to this point sleep good once I get the hook down the boat's secure Camille and Steddy are going to meet me out at Catalina on Monday at some point so tomorrow we'll just be like resting and kind of getting the boat in order I think over 500 nautical miles round trip not a pleasure cruise but you know I don't like what are you gonna do so happy to be not hearing the motor even though we're taking the the seed in the beam a bit rolly good to be sailing there's a large sailboat first boat I've seen since I left Catalina seven days ago probably a race boat just due to the black mainsail I would guess pretty big anchored if you'd like to see the track and all the blog posts that were made in real time on the passage out and the return passage you can check it out on our tracker provided by predict win you can find the link to the tracker in the description below thanks for watching if you enjoyed this episode please give us a like subscribe and leave us a comment it helps us a lot thanks again to all of our patrons your contributions help us get the boat ready for big things until next time