Navigator's Report--Sunrise, February 10, 2000

From Shantell Ching: "We have traveled 15 miles since yesterday at sunset and are now at 11 degrees, 27 minutes S--21 miles W of our course."

Source: Sam Low

It may begin with a rustling of the wind and then a fluky quality to it. The wind becomes restless--haunting. Then it begins to pulse. At night there might be a thickening in the darkness, a blotting of stars, then a dark line and, beneath it, a froth of white. The squall, approaching, seems to fan out--send out scouts first, then deploy its main body in a flanking maneuver, or it may rush ahead as if to harmlessly cross our bow then stop and lurk allowing us to sail up to it. Now the squall moves toward us, gathering mass, swelling, rising higher, pumping itself up and becoming something altogether more sinister than a mere thickening of the night, a thing, what to call it? A monstrous dark blob out there with malevolent intent.

Rain may proceed the wind which finally arrives accompanied at first by a deep whooshing sound--still distant--and then a moaning and the thumping of rain on Hokule`a's decks and the higher pitch of the rain as it strikes our canvas half-tents.

Way before all that has happened Nainoa will have climbed onto the Navigator's platform or ascended to the safety rail, standing with one hand on the rigging, examining the squall's intent. After a time, depending on the signs he detects, he will give the order to stand by the sails. The crew will disperse to their stations--three forward to take in the jib, four to the mizzen, which is the largest sail and so the one taken in first. One crewmember is at the sheet to loosen it; another at the clew to carry the sail forward as a third hauls down on the railing lines to pull the sail tight against the mast. The sheet is always paid out slowly to keep the clew from flapping in the wind and striking one of the crew.

We have experienced a range of squalls on our voyage--from the violent one on the first day with blasting winds accompanied by rapid bursts of lightning all around the horizon to Tuesday's downpour in almost still air. In the first squall the rain crossed the deck horizontally, in the second it was almost vertical.

"You have to watch the squalls carefully," Nainoa says, "if you see one coming to starboard, for example, you want to sail up to the last minute to let it go astern if possible because if it crosses in front of you it blocks your passage. A squall can create a kind of vacuum behind it in which there may be no wind for hours at a time. But, on the other hand, you don't want to wait too long because then the squall will hit you and it can do damage to our rig or endanger the crew. The first principle aboard this canoe is safety."

So far this voyage has been an interesting lesson in weather for everyone on board. We have experienced the gambit, from constant squalls (ten in a single day) to torrid days in which the sails hang limp and useless and the sun--in this windless world--is hot enough to be almost dangerous. It is as if we have sailed into some misplaced doldrums zone or into the aptly named "Horse Latitudes" at 40 degrees N or S where a constant high pressure area creates listless winds and the horses--carried aboard the ships of, for example, the Spanish Conquistadors--began to die of thirst.

From his office at the University of Hawai`i Bernie Kilonsky has a unique view of our situation--from space, using sophisticated computer imaging and models. He tells us what he sees via single side band radio transmission every day. Today, accompanied by wheezing static, he says: "I see an upper cloud layer thick to the S of you all the way to 20 degrees S--solid--but there are no organized storms in it. It's lucky that you left when you did, the convergence zone is settled solidly over Tahiti right now. If you were there it would be a long time before you could leave."

Bernie's computer model shows that we should be experiencing winds a little S of E at about 10 knots, but Nainoa reports to him that at the moment there is virtually no wind here. This situation appears to be a meteorological anomaly which neither Bernie or Nainoa can explain.

All decisions are made aboard the canoe, of course, but the ability to consult with Bernie provides an important measure of safety. Bernie consults daily with his colleague Tom Schroeder at University of Hawai`i's School of Ocean, Earth, Science and Technology as well as with meteorologists at the National Weather Service--organizations that have been providing what Nainoa calls a Weather Safety Net for the last 20 years.

"In general," Nainoa explains, "it is not rare to have light, easterly winds in this part of the South Pacific at this time of the year. It is normally better to sail in June from Tahiti to Hawai`i, but we are sailing now because this voyage was planned to take advantage of the weather in Rapa Nui. At this time of year the high pressure systems which cause the trades tend to be weaker and so the trades are lighter."

"The trough over Tahiti compounds our problem," Nainoa continues, "there is a lot of convection in it--rising moist air--which tends to pull the weak trade winds down into it, sucking the wind south toward it and shifting the winds that normally blow from the E to blow from the NE--and that's where we want to go."

The local pattern so far is for the rising air caused by the heat of the day to diminish the trades--stalling us. At night as the Earth cools, the convection dies down allowing the weak trades to reassert themselves. So, under the stars, Hokule`a makes her way slowly N while under the sun she and her crew endure--wait patiently--for the cool of the night.