The Eastern Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 226

Of Sails and Stars
After a shaky start, we were treated to the loveliest passage imaginable. Fair weather and
steady progress were the order of the day, every day. Weather systems that normally keep
sailors on their toes seemed to be slumbering somewhere far away: in our little bubble
around latitude 08°S, every day was pleasant, and we slept soundly in the knowledge that
tomorrow would bring more of the same. In fact, we hardly had to trim the sails. Namani's
slight rolling motion lulled us into a state of supreme contentment, like daydreaming babes
in the cradle of the ocean. Where else but a boat can you be perfectly content to literally
watch a day go by? A week? We could relate to the French sailor Bernard Moitessier, who
got so into the groove that he didn't stop upon completing one circumnavigation. He
simply sailed on into the setting sun for another half circle of the globe - all in one nonstop
journey poetically chronicled in his book, The Long Way .
By day, we flew the Parasailor, our light-wind miracle machine. What had originally been a
long-winded operation to set the sail quickly became a smooth, fifteen-minute process,
with Markus hoisting the sock on the bow and me tending sheets in the cockpit. Once up,
the Parasailor required next to no tending, and the Hydrovane kept things steady with small
rudder movements. We were free to sit back and enjoy the eco-friendly ride.
At night, we would swap back to the genoa. For this trip, we replaced one of our old fore-
sails with a special twin sail (two flaps sewn on one luff tape) that flies like a twizzle rig
minus the extra set up. Downwind, the flaps open up like a small spinnaker - one that can
be furled to any size with an easy adjustment from the cockpit, even while one flap remains
poled out. As a cautious crew who values undisturbed sleep for the off-watch person, we
prefer trading comfort for speed and therefore douse the Parasailor even on apparently
quiet nights. It's a strategy that pays off: another crew reported midnight shenanigans when
trying to douse their spinnaker in one of the few squalls to cross our general cruising track.
Keeping a steady schedule of four-hour watches, day and night, was another aspect of the
pleasant rhythm that we fell in to. Markus took the early watch, from 06:00 to 10:00,
serving as one of two controllers for the English-speaking radio net during this time. I took
over from 10:00 to 14:00, a time partly devoted to home schooling, plus baking bread (and
other goodies) every third day. Night watches had a quality of their own, with both the Big
Dipper and the Southern Cross in view. Standing port and starboard, they were like buoys
leading us along a marked channel to land, far to the west. Clear nights also meant that
Markus could aim our sextant at the sky just about any time he wanted for a star sight -