A Dream of Solo Sailing to Hawaii in a Small Boat Lost after self-steering failure

Episode # 196 : A Change of Course

Hello Friends,

Here is the story of my ill fated attempt at solo sailing our 30ft sailboat Triteia to the Hawaiian Islands.

We had pushed hard to finally live land life behind and were 2 months behind our planned departure date due to parts shortages and unexpected complications with getting our new mast installed. Our original cruising plans were for James to sail solo to Hawaii then continue on to Alaska where Camille and Mister Steady would come on board. All of the delays and the advancing summer season gave us a very tight time window on making this dream come true. This resulted in not enough time to throughly sea trail the windvane….

After days of beating into 20-30 knot winds, my self steering Windvane began to work its self loose from the boat. The threads in the housing of the windvane itself failed which presented the possibility of losing the vane into the sea or WORSE possibly damage the transom of the boat due to the massive loads placed on this gear at sea. Impossible to fix underway I made the hard call and came about and abandoned my attempt for Hawaii.

Could I have lashed the windvane and continued on? Possibly yes but my concern was once I made it to Hawaii would I get stuck in Hawaii if the vane was not able to be repaired? I also had to consider there is no quick exit from Hawaii. It is 3 weeks or a month sail from Hawaii to anywhere on the West Coast of the North America.

I had not 1 but 2 electronic “Tiller Pilots” as a back up and for coastal cruising in light winds but these units are, strangely enough, Not waterproof and tend to burn out very easily. So I wasn’t without redundancies but anyone who goes ocean sailing knows that a windvane is the most critical gear on the boat especially so for a solo sailor.

So as with all things sailing, one must be flexible and willing to change course when necessary.

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Love,
James & Camille

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