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Sample Navigation Report from the Steve Somsen Collection (transcribed from audio tapes) |
The following is navigation report #15 for Wednesday 21 May, 1980. Steve: Nainoa, Wednesday morning,
my first question is where are we, this case with the respect to Tahiti? Steve: And distance to Tahiti? Steve: How about the direction
to the Big Island of Hawaii? Steve: How about our house
or latitude? Steve: How about our position
relative to the courseline? Steve: What clues did you use
last night to determine latitude? Steve: What about our present
course, what is the course and the speed of the Hokule'a right now? Steve: How about average course
since our report last night? Steve: And how about average
speed since last night? Steve: How about the wind direction
of the moment? Steve: And what is the speed
of the wind? Steve: How about principal
swells, what are you using this morning? Steve: Is Hikina any larger
than it was yesterday? Steve: So it would seem that maybe the wind is going to continue to come out of the northeast, what do you think? Nainoa: Yah, probably. The wind is real straight. Good wind. Steve: How about the course?
Steve: The wind all the way
right? You know the only times we've been steering is just that one night
to avoid that ship, right? Steve: What about, you talked
about the wind, I would guess one of the indicators there is the clouds,
what kind of clouds we've got this morning? Steve: And pretty much that's
it, just tradewind cumulus? Steve: Just for my own review here, the steets of clouds or the road of the clouds are they one of the same incidentally, Nainoa: Yah Steve: Is it when they kind
of line up and kind of evenly spaced pattern like they are right now?
Steve: So it indicates the
direction of the wind and indicates that it will be straight for some
time? Steve: Okay, so we've got tradewind
cumulus, and they are indicating the straight wind, what about percent
of cloud cover? Steve: Other thoughts about
the navigation? And the swells, sometime I have a hard time, like now when the wind is steady. When the wind is steady, it's pretty easy to pick up the long ones and forget all the swell mishmash. But yesterday when the wind changed from east to east northeast, the water got really sloppy. You noticed it got really bumpy yesterday. There was a period of time when it was really bumpy and the canoe hardly moved and it couldn't go fast at all. It was about 10:00 in the morning. It was after that big rain; then I have a real hard time seeing the waves. I can tell, but more from the feel of the canoe. When the wind was from the east, we had a wave from southeast manu, so when we turned north, that southeast manu wave we started to surf a little bit, not surf straight down but it came to on to our stern quarter and we kind of surfing it a little bit. All Mau said is you got to pick out the long wave and I know that, but I just have a hard time. Got to practice now, pick out the long wave, which I think is important to remember. The said set. You set the front sail too tight, you're going to go too slow. Even though you ease it out a little bit, you're going to go higher into the wind and you're going to gain speed, that's what happened today. You can't set the sails too tight and I think we just got to play with it more and get the adjustment. We adjusted the sails, today we brought in the back sail the canoe pointed higher, but it slowed down. We brought in the front sail and the canoe fell off a little bit but it didn't go faster. We eased out the front sail and the canoe came higher which makes sense, but it went faster, that's only because we're getting more efficient air flow. Still got a lot to learn about the sails, just got to play around with it more. It makes a big difference. We're climbing 23 degrees. Remember, it's the same wind we had this morning. We didn't go to the east, we just got the sails more efficient and we got good speed. So from now on I want to every morning and afternoon I'll look at the sun and we'll set the sails, play around with it, get the right set. Maybe I'll ask Mau to help in the beginning. Try it on our own so we can experience the feeling about the thing that the boat's really efficient. Steve: Rough seas? Steve: What would you say that the leeway is right now? Steve: I know the first few days out of Tahiti was pretty bad. What do
you think was our worst leeway since we've been away from Papeete? Steve: You don't have any idea where those magnums came from? Steve Magnums tend to fly in this latitude? This is the end of report #15. Additional note: This is the 21st of May.
It is our 9th sailing day since leaving Papeete and Nainoa has indicated
that he has seen land birds every day of the voyage so far since leaving
Tahiti. Yesterday, which was the 20th of May, he saw no less that 15 birds.
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