Starr – Update Oct 7, 2015

We still have the ships clock on Seattle time, but we do our weather reports in UTC time (aka Zulu (Z) time, aka Greenwich time).

Wednesday Oct 7. Day 13 since departing Seattle and 5.4 days to go to Honolulu.

This was planned to be a 12-14 day run, and now going to be closer to 18-19 days. This passage is getting close to our 2011 Starr personal record of 22 days, 4000nm nonstop Japan to Hawaii crossing!

Thanks to Hurricane Oho, for 7 days we have slowed the engine down from 1500rpm to 1000-1250rpm, 6-6.5 knots, and were consuming one-half to three-quarters gallons per nm. At 6 knots we would have been able to go over 7200nm if the tanks were full.

We have had to keep well east of the rhumb line, and only last night did we alter course almost 90 degrees (COG 265T) and increased speed to 8-9 knots to head straight for the islands. It looks like we will get into HNL after Oho has made its projected move towards the NNE.

Pic #1 (NOTE FROM KEN WHO IS POSTING THIS ON BEHALF OF DON – the picture was somehow lost getting to me, so I decided to post without it)

JWTC has Oho with 70 kts and gusts 85 kts at 08/0000Z but that is close to the system (Starr is the small white dot to the right of Oho).

P.S. Yesterday we opened our new $40K Freeman swim-step hatches to retrieve some fishing gear and found 6 to 8 inches of seawater in the hold. These hatches are the first to use a new hinge design, and I’m one of the guinea pigs. I tried to no avail to get Freeman/AdvanTec to help adjust them with no success. Let’s just say that service from Freeman, under the new ownership of AdvanTec, is about 180 degrees opposite of the excellent service that we receive from ABT/TRAC, builders of stabilizers, thrusters and our trusty hydraulic get-home drive unit!