These folks are dancing with the devil. PassageWeather has the high breathing in and out but staying mostly stationary. I hope so...
Kynntana's track has the look of one who's hand-steering (with very brief naps). I hope not...
If I had to guess, I would think Kynntana is sailing to a wind angle rather than a compass course; could be an autopilot set up to track wind angles, or perhaps Carlianne is working with her Monitor wind vane - the wind vane is an amazing apparatus to observe underway.
The gybes south should have to do with how deep Kynntana will sail effectively, which doesn't appear to be as deep as the other boats. I do not know the polars for the Freedon 38, therefore I do not know what the best gybe angles should be. Gybing south or east of south while in or approaching the ridge is usually not helpful for getting to Hanalei quickly - at that point you're kind of committed to where you exited the coastal flow off California.
Kynntana boat speed is remaining up and pointed in the right direction over many hours at a time, which makes me doubt she's hand steering. I can steer better than the autopilot for perhaps 45 minutes, after which I start to lose concentration and discover the autopilot is better at paying attention to course than I am!
- rob/beetle
The Wind Display overlay tracker option is pretty interesting, with easy-to-understand forecasts. Selecting Waves and Swells gives an idea of the sea state; Advancing the time to noon on 4 July indicates some bumpy, confused-sea days near the end of the race, with the 992 L far to the East (if you believe a forecast that far in advance).
The night of the barbeque Mike Jefferson was still crouched on Kynntana's sugar scoop drilling into the Monitor Windvane's bracket. Or maybe he was drilling into the emergency rudder's bracket. Or maybe he was drilling into Kynntana's arch bracket. So much stainless, only a limited amount of time left. Lots of beautiful bling.
pppffffttt... and here I offered to drive up and help Carliane with any last minute hauling, scraping, bolting and carting and she turned me down!
Good thing, I wrenched my shoulder really badly Friday morning, but still.
Remember that a Freedom basically doesn't have a spinnaker. I haven't talked to Carliane about spinnakers for her boat for many months, but when we last left the topic, she'd decided to "let a Freedom be a Freedom", and that meant not messing with that dinky little symmetrical chute that they use. Has she got an assy since then? If not, then I would want to reach, not run, as long as possible with that ginormous mainsail.
1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"
For a tutorial on options for wind map, there's a tutorial that covers some basic functions-
http://www.maccinfo.com/Introduction_to_Windy.html
Carliane said her monitor was being a "stubborn beast" and had her wandering off course. I hope she isn't going to have a problem tomorrow with the direction she's currently heading?